THE  LIBRARY 

OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


How  to  Manage  Men 

THE  PRINCIPLES 

OF 

EMPLOYING  LABOR 


BY 

E.  H.  FISH 

Formerly  V ice-President  Boston  Employment  Managers'  Association 

Formerly  V ice-President  National  Association  of 

Employment  Managers 


NEW  YORK 
THE  ENGINEERING  MAGAZINE   COMPANY 

1920 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BT 
THE  ENGINEERING  MAGAZINE   COMPANT 


Library 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  is  offered  with  the  earnest  hope  that  it  will 
help  its  readers  to  think,  and  think  clearly,  on  the  whole 
matter  of  the  relations  between  workers  and  their  employers. 
In  these  after  war  days  it  is  most  interesting  to  see  the 
struggles  through  which  employers  are  passing  in  their  efforts 
to  find  the  one  panacea  for  their  troubles.  Many  can  seemingly 
not  think  of  this  as  a  large,  broad  problem,  affected  by  the 
work  of  almost  every  department  of  their  organization,  but 
feel  that  there  is  some  patent  medicine  that  will  cure  all  ills, 
and  which  can  be  administered  by  a  small  organization  headed 
by  a  man  who  is  willing  to  work  for  less  than  the  average 
workman  in  the  plant.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  no  such 
panacea  exists,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  there  are  so  many 
men  in  high  positions  to  whom  it  needs  to  be  said  again  and 
again.  It  is  also  a  fact  to  be  viewed  with  alarm  that  there 
are  workers  who  do  not  see  that  there  is  only  disaster  ahead 
if  their  policy  of  "taking  it  all"  is  maintained.  It  may  well 
be  that  the  fault  lies  with  employers  who  have  not  taken 
their  employees  into  their  confidence  and  have  not  shown 
them  where  the  money  goes  which  is  taken  in  exchange  for 
the  goods  sold.  No  one  really  intends  to  kill  the  goose  which 
lays  the  golden  egg,  but  if  we  do  not  know  her  limit  it  is 
easy  to  destroy  her  useiulness  as  a  producer. 

So  in  arranging  the  material  that  presented  itself  as  de- 
sirable in  a  treatment  of  the  "Principles  of  Employing  Labor" 
it  seemed  wise  to  divide  it  into  four  general  parts  or  sections. 
The  first,  under  the  title  "Establishing  the  Employment  De- 
partment," considers  the  general  policy  that  the  management 
should  adopt  in  its  labor  relations,  and  then  passes  on  to  the 
standards  for  selection  and  training  employment  managers, 
the  machinery  of  employment,  and  the  basic  factors  whereby 


1267278 


— Iv— 

the  work  of  the  department  can  be  evaluated.  The  second 
part  is  more  particularly  devoted  to  the  employment  manager 
and  his  immediate  and  personal  problems.  He  is  the  one 
who  must  record  and  select,  must  secure  and  train  his  own 
office  force,  and  administer  in  a  broad  way  the  work  of  his 
department,  keeping  in  touch  with  all  the  other  departments 
of  the  plant,  for  he  is  serving  all  the  others. 

The  third  part  deals  with  those  efforts  and  conditions 
that  tend  to  satisfy  and  bring  contentment  to  the  workers. 
The  title  is  "Promoting  Industrial  Relations,"  and  such  mat- 
ters  as  the  rights  and  duties  of  labor,  hours  of  labor,  health, 
sanitation,  rest  periods,  recreation,  housing,  and  financial  aids 
are  presented  with  an  attempt  to  evaluate  these  activities. 

The  final  section  "Industrial  Education"  is  devoted  to  the 
great  subject  of  training  and  education  in  industry.  The  be- 
liefs and  declarations  of  the  industrial  educators  for  the  past 
ten  years  were  demonstrated  during  the  period  of  war  when 
it  was  plainly  shown  what  improvements  in  production  and 
industrial  effectiveness  could  be  brought  about  among  un- 
skilled and  semi-skilled  workers  simply  by  a  brief  course  of 
intensive,  specialized  training.  Not  only  does  this  last  section 
deal  with  these  matters,  but  it  also  takes  up  the  training  of 
foremen  and  that  essential  instruction  which  is  one  of  the 
bases  of  all  Americanization  work. 

It  has  been  a  difficult  task  to  give  the  different  subjects 
considered  their  proper  relative  value.  It  is  easy  to  write  at 
length  about  social  service  work  in  the  factory,  about  group 
insurance,  and  the  like,  but  these  things  are  not  the  vital  part 
of  the  industrial  relation,  and  all  the  insurance  and  social  work 
that  can  be  done  will  not  affect  the  state  of  a  plant  that  has  an 
attack  of  labor  unrest.  These  efforts  are  good  in  their  place, 
but  their  place  is  a  small  one  relative  to  methods  of  wage  pay- 
ment and  of  management  of  labor  in  the  shop. 

It  would  have  been  easy  to  devote  many  pages  to  the  forms 
and  machinery  of  the  employment  office.  There  are  as  many 
sets  of  forms  as  there  are  employment  offices,  and  every  em- 
ployment manager  thinks  his  are  the  best.  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact  the  forms  are  of  so  much  less  importance  than  the  spirit 
in  which  the  work  is  done,  so  much  less  important  than  the 


— v — 

backing  which  the  management  gives  the  various  departments 
dealing  with  employment  matters,  that  they  sink  into  a  low 
place  of  importance. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  important  question,  which 
each  company  must  settle  for  itself — What  is  its  real  attitude 
toward  its  employees?  Employment  management,  safety  en- 
gineering, social  service,  housing,  feeding,  all  have  been  used 
time  after  time  for  purposes  of  deception,  to  make  the  em- 
ployees less  conscious  of  the  exploitation  to  which  they  were 
being  submitted.  It  has  been  very  hard  for  a  great  number 
of  employers  to  look  on  their  help  in  any  other  way  than  as 
so  many  ignorant  people  who  did  not  know  enough  to  conduct 
a  business  themselves  and  who  were,  therefore,  a  subject  for 
exploitation.  Th'ey  find  it  difficult  to  look  on  the  hiring  of  a 
man  as  a  purely  business  contract  which  cannot  result  favor- 
ably unless  both  parties  are  benefited  thereby. 

Analysis  of  labor  turnover  shows  in  many  cases  that  even 
where  the  management  desires  to  meet  its  employees  on  a 
fair  basis  they  are  prevented  from  so  doing  by  the  disposition 
of  their  foremen.  There  has  never  been  a  time  when  good 
foremanship  has  been  more  needed  than  at  present,  but  a  man 
may  be  a  very  poor  foreman  and  yet  hold  his  position  through 
lack  of  adequate  means  of  measuring  his  efficiency.  This 
lack  may  not  necessarily  be  the  fault  of  the  foreman;  it  may 
come  through  a  false  standard  by  which  his  efficiency  has  been 
measured  in  terms  of  daily  output,  rather  than  output  over 
a  long  period. 

So  it  has  been  my  intent  to  evaluate  the  things  which  go 
to  make  up  a  satisfactory  working  organization.  It  has  also 
been  my  desire  to  show  that  the  things  which  are  needful  for 
this  purpose  are  not  only  inexpensive,  but  that  they  are  very 
profitable,  for  business  can  only  be  carried  on  if  there  is  a 
reasonable  profit  to  those  who  assume  its  risks. 

I  wish  it  were  possible  to  give  credit  by  name  to  the  great 
number  of  people  who  have  aided  in  the  writing  of  this  book. 
To  do  so,  however,  is  impossible  for  many  thousand  workmen 
from  many  kinds  of  industry  and  the  officials  of  firms  em- 
ploying hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  have  generously  given 
me  their  viewpoints.  A  part  of  the  matter  was  presented  in 


—vi — 

serial  form  in  Industrial  Management  during  1919,  and  for 
editoral  assistance  in  the  preparation  of  the  present  volume,  I 
am  deeply  indebted  to  Mr.  L.  P.  Alford  and  Mr.  E.  W.  Tree. 

E.  H.  FISH. 
Worcester,  Mass. 
March,  1920. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 
ESTABLISHING  THE  EMPLOYMENT  DEPARTMENT 


CHAPTER  I.  WHY  ESTABLISH  AN  EMPLOYMENT  DEPARTMENT  ....  3 
Fundamental  Basis  of  Dealing  with  Employees — The  Status  of  the 
Worker — The  Need  of  the  Future — The  Foreman's  Opportunity — 
Establishing  Contact  Between  Worker  and  Owner — Authority  in  the 
Shop — Financial  Relations — Selection  of  Workers — Transportation 
of  Employees — The  Problem  of  the  Commissary  Department — 
Industrial  Democracy — Workmen  and  Their  Representatives — The 
Bill  for  Labor. 

CHAPTER  II.    POLICIES  OP  MANAGEMENT 10 

The  Fundamental  Policy — The  Employment  Department  an  Execu- 
tive Body — The  Problems  of  Industrial  Relations — "Firing  Help"- 
Welfare  Work — Why  Men  Labor — The  Shop  Creed — Creating  Confi- 
dence Between  Workmen  and  Management — The  Employment 
Department's  Position — Disagreements  in  the  Shop  and  Their 
Settlement. 

CHAPTER  III.  SELECTION  AND  TRAINING  OP  EMPLOYMENT  MANAGERS  .  .  16 
The  Ideal  Employment  Manager — Rating  the  Manager's  Work — 
Some  Manager's  Ways  of  Getting  Results — Types  of  Employment 
Managers — Education  and  Employment  Work — Engineering  Schools 
and  Employment  Management — Industry  and  Labor — Teaching 
Employment  Management — The  Manager's  Job — Two  Ways  of  Ob- 
taining an  Employment  Department. 

CHAPTER  IV.    THE  MACHINERY  OF  EMPLOYMENT 22 

The  Office  of  the  Employment  Department — The  Waiting  Room — 
Peak  Loads — Type  of  Applicants — Records — Requisition  for  Help, 
Their  Value  and  Importance — The  Interviewing  Room — Methods  of 
Interviewing — Personal  Questions — Secret  Societiesand  Labor  Unions — 
The  Company's  Relation  to  the  Interviewer — The  Requirements  for 
a  Successful  Interviewer — Women  Interviewers — Methods  of  Meeting 
Men. 

CHAPTER  V.    HIRING  THE  WORKMAN 34 

The  Employment  Department  an  Agent  of  the  Foreman — Meeting 
the  Foreman — Endorsing  the  Requisition — Medical  Examinations — 
Relation  of  Medical  Examiner  to  Interviewer — Passes — Interviews 
with  Men  After  Hiring — Files  and  File  Rooms — The  Relation  of  the 
Safety  Engineering  Department. 

vii 


— Vlll — 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  VI.    EMPLOYMENT  FORMS 41 

Forms,  the  Least  of  Employment  Management — Reasons  for  Forms — 
Classification  of  Data  Referring  to  Applicants — Size  and  Arrangement 
of  Forms — Requisitioning  Help — Form  for  Increases  in  Pay — Transfer 
Forms — Receipts  for  Company  Property — Forms  for  Reporting 
Absent  and  Change  of  Job — Duplicate  Copies  of  Forms — The  Use  of 
Folders  in  the  File  Room. 

CHAPTER  VII.    TRADE  AND  MENTAL  TESTS 47 

Requirements  of  a  Trade  Test — Catch  Questions — "Try-Out"  Tests — 
Testing  Men  While  on  the  Job — Value  of  Trade  Tests — Mental 
Capacity — The  Sensitiveness  of  Workers — The  Right  Man  in  the 
Right  Place — Memory  Tests — Word  Tests — Concentration  Tests — 
The  Final  Factor  in  the  Selection  of  Labor. 

CHAPTER  VIII.     RATING  LABOR  TURNOVER 54 

Methods  of  Rating  Labor  Turnover — Analysis  of  Turnover — Com- 
parisons Within  the  Shop — The  Employment  Department  and  Labor 
Turnover — Three  Methods  of  Calculating  Labor  Turnover — A  Typi- 
cal Example  of  the  Method  of  Computing  the  Cost  of  Labor  Turnover — 
Tardiness. 

CHAPTER  IX.    HAS  THE  EMPLOYMENT  DEPARTMENT  ANY  PART  IN  THE 

DEMOCRATIZATION  OF  INDUSTRY 65 

The  Ambition  of  the  Employment  Department — The  Democratization 
of  Industry — The  Employment  Department  as  the  Company's  Repre- 
sentative— The  Interests  of  the  Workman — Individual  Prooerty 
Rights— Cooperative  Operation — The  Education  of  the  Workman. 


CHAPTER  X.     DEVELOPING  THE  LABOR  SUPPLY 73 

The  Cycle  of  Industrial  History — The  Supply  of  Workers — The  Flow 
of  Labor — The  Race  Problem— The  Market  for  Skilled  and  Unskilled 
Labor — Influence  of  the  Love  of  Home — The  Worker's  Limitations — 
The  Solution  of  the  Problem — The  Expansion  of  Business — Increasing 
the  Labor  Supply — Motion  Study  and  Production — Women  in  the 
Industries. 

CHAPTER  XI.     SELECTING  AND  PLACING  WORKERS 84 

Wanted:  A  System  of  Selecting  Workers — The  Classes  of  Workers — 
Industrial  Misfits — Vocational  Guidance — The  Need  of  Teachers — 
Selecting  the  Worker — Characteristics  Which  Influence  the  Placing 
of  Workers — Happiness  on  the  Job — The  Elements  of  a  Good  Job — 
The  Problem  of  Training — Physical  Selection. 

CHAPTER  XII.    THE  UNEMPLOYED  WORKMAN 92 

The  Influence  of  Extravagance  on  Unemployment — Seasonal  Employ- 
ment— The  Employment  Manager's  Opportunity — The  Employer's 
Efforts  Often  Futile — Some  Ways  of  Solving  the  Problem. 

CHAPTER  XIII.    ADVERTISING  AND  SCOUTING 96 

The  Aims  and  Value  of  Advertising — Increasing  Rates  for  Labor  and 
Its  Effect  on  the  Labor  Market — Display  Advertisements — The 
Ethics  of  Advertising  and  Scouting — How  Some  Firms  Secure  a  Supply 
of  Labor — Legitimate  Scouting — The  Policy  of  the  Firm. 


— IX — 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XIV.     EMPLOYMENT  AGENCIES 102 

The  Employment  Agencies  Conception  of  Labor — "Floaters" — The 
Methods  of  the  Agency — State  and  Federal  Agencies  as  a  Solution  to 
the  Problem — Their  Records  and  Needs  of  the  Future — The  Public 
Agency,  Its  Objects  and  Limitations — Employer  Association  Agencies, 
Their  Value  and  Method  of  Operation—Social  Organizations — The 
Field  of  Operation. 

CHAPTER  XV.    COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING 109 

Collective  vs.  Individual  Bargaining — The  Evils  of  Collective  Bargain- 
ing— The  Employer's  Strange  Attitude — One-Sided  Collective  Bar- 
gaining— The  Impossibility  of  Dealing  With  Individuals — The  Em- 
ployment Department's  Opportunity — Records — The  Workmen's 
Leaders — Strikes — The  Labor  Unions— The  Employer's  Mistake — 
The  Wisdom  of  Collective  Bargaining — Wage  Rates  and  Production — 
The  Needs  of  the  Future — A  Prophecy  Concerning  Collective  Bar- 
gaining. 

CHAPTER  XVI.     REFERENCES 118 

The  Need  for  Discussion — Promises  and  Fulfillment — The  Foremen's 
Way  of  Giving  References — Why  Men  Will  Not  Give  Notice  of  Leav- 
ing—The Employer's  Mistake — The  Solution  of  the  Problem — 
Records  as  an  Aid  to  Securing  Jobs — The  Ideal  Way  of  Effecting  a 
Change. 

CHAPTER  XVII.     FOLLOW-UP  IN  THE  SHOP 124 

The  Need  for  Follow-up — The  Basis  of  the  Work — Records — Com- 
plaints and  the  Method  of  Settlement — Why  Men  Leave — What  the 
Records  Show  and  How  They  Should  be  Kept — Secret  Wage  Rates — 
Follow-up  Outside  the  Shop — The  Ideal  Follow-up  Man  and  His 
Problem. 

CHAPTER  XVIII.     ATTENDANCE 131 

The  Factors  Which  Affect  Attendance — How  the  Attitude  of  the  Firm 
Increases  Attendance — Personal  Reasons  for  Absences — The  Ma- 
chinery for  Recording  Shop  Attendance — Some  Common  Reasons  for 
Absence. 

CHAPTER  XIX.     TRANSFERS 135 

The  Need  for  Transfers — The  Employment  Manager's  Position  in 
Making  Transfers — How  Many  Shops  Handle  the  Problem — The 
Proper  Methods  of  Effecting  Transfers. 

CHAPTER  XX.     THE  EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  OFFICE  FORCE 139 

The  Status  of  the  Office  Force — Types  of  Department  Heads — Shop 
Methods  as  Applied  to  Office  Work — Selecting  Office  Workers — 
Women  in  the  Office — The  "Old  Women  in  Trousers" — The  Pay  of 
Office  Help — Underpayment — Office  Misfits — Hiring  Office  Help  a 
Three-Party  Contract — Business  Training. 

CHAPTER  XXI.    WOMEN  IN  THE  SHOPS 146 

Women  in  Industry  During  the  War — Objections  to  Women  Doing 
Manual  Labor — "Fit  Work"  for  Both  Men  and  Women — Some 
Changes  in  the  Shop  Due  to  Hiring  Women — The  Selection  of  a  Suit- 
able Working  Garb — "Womanalls" — Women  as  Foremen — The  Shop 
Matron. 

CHAPTER  XXII.     EMPLOYMENT  OF  MINORS 154 

What  Constitutes  Child  Labor — The  School  vs.  the  Shop — A  Study  of 
Why  Boys  are  Discharged. 


X 

PAOB 

CHAPTER  XXIII.    EMPLOYMENT  OF  CRIPPLES 161 

War  Cripples — "Dead-End"  Jobs — The  European  Method  of  Em- 
ploying Industrial  Cripples — The  American  Way — The  Problem  of  the 
Day  Laborer — The  Difficult  Case  of  the  Man  of  Strong  Mentality — 
Training  the  Industrial  Cripple — Tubercular  Cases — The  Duty  of  the 
State. 

CHAPTER  XXIV.     SOCIAL  MISFITS 167 

Society  and  Its  Misfits — The  Social  Misfit  in  the  Shop — Mental  Cases 
— Treatment  in  the  Shops — The  Employment  Manager's  Course. 

CHAPTER  XXV.  SAFETY  ENGINEERING  AS  RELATED  TO  EMPLOYMENT  .  .  172 
The  First  Problem,  Securing  Mechanical  Safeguards — Safe  Practices 
the  Result  of  Experiments — The  Safety  Man,  an  Engineer — The  Need 
for  a  Safety  Engineering  Department—Cooperation  a  Matter  of  Edu- 
cation— Two  Ways  of  Organizing  a  Safety  Engineering  Department — 
The  Merits  of  the  Amateur  Safety  Committee — The  Professional  Plan 
— The  Placing  of  Responsibility — Difficult  Plants  to  Safeguard — 
What  Constitutes  an  Accident — Hospital  Cases — Dangerous  Jobs — The 
Safety  Department  as  the  Representative  of  the  Insurance  Company. 


PART  III 
PROMOTING  INDUSTRIAL  RELATIONS 

CHAPTER  XXVI.    THE  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  OF  LABOR 185 

The  Employer's  Right  to  Protect  His  Property — Strikes  and  Boycotts — 
The  Right  to  Organize — The  Solution  of  the  Problem — The  Advan- 
tage of  Organizing — Wages  and  Strikes — The  Recognition  of  the 
Union — The  Right  to  Labor — Industrial  Peace. 

CHAPTER  XXVII.     HOURS  OF  LABOR 193 

The  Basis  of  Hours  of  Labor — "Automatic  Jobs" — The  Two  Extremes 
of  Labor — Salesmen's  Hours — Appointments — Men  Who  Wait  for 
Machines — Machine  Tenders — The  Social  Factor  in  Hours  of  Labor — 
Overtime — The  Governing  Principle  in  Determining  the  Length  of 
the  Shift — Influence  on  Production  of  the  Worker's  Method  of  Spend- 
ing His  Non-working  Hours — The  Length  of  the  Noon  Hour — Night 
Work. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII.     THE  COMMISSARY  DEPARTMENT 204 

The  Dinner-pail  System — Why  It  Fails — The  Solution  of  the  Prob- 
lem— Why  it  is  Not  Put  Into  Effect — Company  Restaurants — Cost  vs. 
Service — Food  Substitutes — The  Employees  of  the  Commissary 
Department — Cafeterias  vs.  Lunch  Rooms — The  Cost  of  Food— 
"Letting  Out"  the  Feeding  Privilege— ^The  Scheme  of  Serving  Parts 
of  Meals — Milk  Wagons  and  Milk  Stations — A  Study  of  Their  Value. 

CHAPTER  XXIX.     HOUSING 214 

The  Requirements  of  a  Typical  Workman's  Family — The  Kitchen, 
Its  Size  and  Equipment — Floors — Sleeping  Rooms — Heating — Halls 
and  Reception  Rooms — The  Evolution  of  the  Workman's  Family — 
The  Size  of  the  Lot — Location — Two-Family  Houses — Why  Con- 
cerns go  into  Housing — "Cheap"  vs.  "Low  Cost"  Houses — Typical 
Designs  of  a  Workman  House — Double  Houses — Three  Deckers — 
Apartment  Hotels — The  Selection  of  a  Manager — Selling  Homes  to 
Workman — Renting — Housing  as  a  Means  of  Investing — One  Solu- 
tion to  the  Problem. 


XI 

PAOB 

CHAPTER  XXX.     HEALTH  AND  SANITATION 228 

Cleanliness  in  the  Shop — Checking  Workers'  Garments — The  Storage 
of  Food— Personal  Cleanliness — Corners  and  Cuspidors — Floors  and 
Windows — Building  and  Yards — Mud,  an  Enemy  to  Production — 
Cleaning  Machinery — Physical  Examination  of  Employees,  Its  Value 
and  Abuses — The  Training  of  Industrial  Physicians. 

CHAPTER  XXXI.     REST  AND  RECREATION 237 

The  Measure  of  a  Useful  Life — Rest  Periods — Why  Men  Change  Jobs 
— The  Value  of  Vacations — Vacations  for  the  Men  in  the  Shops — How 
Some  Shops  Solve  the  Problem — Recreation  as  a  Substitute  for  Vaca- 
tions— Shop  Baseball  Teams — Tennis — Football — Basketball— Other 
Sports — Theatricals — Carnivals — Orchestras  and  Bands — The  Com- 
pany's Attitude  Toward  Recreation — The  Need  and  Value  of  Rec- 
reation— Gardens,  Their  Size,  Location,  and  Value. 

CHAPTER  XXXII.  FINANCIAL,  RELATIONS  AND  LABOR  TURNOVER  .  .  251 
Why  Men  Change  Jobs — The  Basis  of  Compensation — Methods  of  Pay- 
ing for  Labor — Hourly  Rate-^-Yearly  Salary — Premium  Systems — 
Task  and  Bonus  System — Piece-work  System — Methods  of  Dis- 
tributing Wages — Cashing  Checks — Factors  Which  Influence  Labor 
Turnover — Loan  Money  to  Employees — Financial  Rewards — In- 
surance— Profit  Sharing. 

CHAPTER  XXXIII.  NON-FINANCIAL  REASONS  FOR  LABOR  TURNOVER  .  266 
Why  Men  Refuse  Certain  Jobs — Work  Which  Should  be  Eliminated — 
Accidents  and  Their  Effect  Upon  Labor  Turnover — Unhealthful 
Working  Condition  Sanitation — Morale — Tenure  of  Job — The  Shop 
"Wireless" — Welfare  Work — The  Task  Confronting  the  General 
Manager — Reorganization  and  its  Effect — The  Workers'  Age  and  its 
Relation  to  His  Working  Capacity — The  Relation  of  Home  Affairs. 


PART  IV 
INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

CHAPTER  XXXIV.  THE  STATUS  OF  VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  .  .  .  279 
The  Value  of  Vocational  Education — The  Development  of  the  Engi- 
neering School — Training  for  the  Trades — Apprenticeship — Private 
Vocational  Schools — Corporation  Schools — Public  School — Public  and 
Corporation  Schools  in  Cooperation — The  Control  of  Vocation  Train- 
ing— Technical  High  Schools — The  Number  to  be  Trained 

CHAPTER  XXXV.    A  STUDY  OF  THE  PROBLEM 289 

A  Statement  of  the  Problem — The  Education  of  the  Worker — The 
Time  Required — An  Analysis  of  the  Processes  of  Industry — Adapt- 
ability of  the  Worker — The  Needs  of  the  Present 

CHAPTER  XXXVI.    VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS    .     294 
The  Present  Status  of  the  Training — Creating  the  Ability  to  Work — 
Specific  Training — Pre- Vocational  Education — Cooperation  Between 
School  and  Shop — How  the  Worcester  Trade  School  Divides  the  Time 
Between  Shop  and  Classroom. 


Xll 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XXXVII.  VOCATIONA L  EDUCATION  IN  THE  INDUSTRIES  .  .  .  300 
Why  Young  People  Leave  School — Their  Realization  of  Their  Mistake 
— How  They  are  Being  Helped — Commercial  Schools — Private 
Schools — Corporation  Schools — The  Merits  and  Value  of  Each — 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  Schools — Public  School  Evening  Courses — The  Value  and 
Limitations  of  the  Evening  School — How  the  Problem  is  Being  Solved — 
The  Fitchbury  Plan — The  Controlling  Purpose. 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII.     GENERAL  TRADE  METHODS 309 

The  Basis  of  All  Vocational  Training — The  Need  of  Teachers — A  S^udy 
of  the  Industries — The  Training  of  the  Workers. 

CHAPTER  XXXIX.     THE  TRAINING  OF  FOREMEN 313 

The  Need  of  Training  Foremen — The  Status  of  the  Foremen — The 
Foreman's  Opportunity — His  First  Job — Characteristics  of  an  Ideal 
Foreman — How  a  Foreman  Should  Handle  Men — Local  Nomenclature 
— The  Care  of  Tools  and  Machinery — Holding  Men  on  the  Job — How 
to  Give  Instruction — Motion  Study — Safety  Work. 

CHAPTER  XL.     AMERICANIZATION 323 

The  Status  of  Americanization — Americanization  Defined — The  Mis- 
takes of  the  Past — The  Cure — The  Greatest  Force  for  Americanizatip- 


Chapter        I    WHY  ESTABLISH  AN  EMPLOYMENT  DE- 
PARTMENT?      .....  3 
Chapter       II    POLICIES  OF  MANAGEMENT  ...  10 
Chapter     III    SELECTION  AND  TRAINING  OF  EMPLOY- 
MENT MANAGERS       .         .         .         .16 
Chapter      IV    THE  MACHINERY  OF  EMPLOYMENT      .  22 
Chapter       V    HIRING  THE  WORKMAN        ...  34 
Chapter      VI    EMPLOYMENT  FORMS            ...  41 
Chapter    VII    TRADE  AND  MENTAL  TESTS  ...  47 
Chapter  VIII    RATING  LABOR  TURNOVER     ...  54 
Chapter     IX    HAS    THE    EMPLOYMENT    DEPARTMENT 
ANY  PART  IN  THE  DEMOCRATIZATION 
OF  INDUSTRY?  .  65 


PRINCIPLES  OF  EMPLOYING 

LABOR 

CHAPTER  I 
WHY  ESTABLISH  AN  EMPLOYMENT  DEPARTMENT? 

SCIENCE,  engineering,  and  accounting  have  all  far  out- 
stripped in  their  progress  the  art  of  handling  men,  for 
with  few  exceptions  this  activity  of  our  civilization  is  carried 
on  exactly  as  it  was  in  the  earliest  years  of  the  so-called  fac- 
tory system.  It  is  true  that  some  concerns  have  given  con- 
siderable thought  and  attention  to  the  promoting  of  personal 
relations,  but  for  the  most  part  all  that  one  finds  is  merely 
the  machinery  of  scientific  employment;  forms,  files,  and  in- 
dexes are  unlimited  and  the  vital  spark  which  alone  can  make 
such  a  department  profitable  is  lacking. 

As  a  fundamental  basis  for  all  dealings  with  employees 
there  should  exist  above  all  else  a  good  business  relation,  for 
good  business  demands  that  everything  be  open  and  above 
board.  Retail  merchants  long  ago  discovered  the  one-price 
system  and  they  gave  up  the  idea  of  taking  advantage  of  the 
customer's  ignorance  of  values.  No  such  condition  prevails 
in  the  purchase  of  labor,  however,  except  where  employers, 
usually  against  their  will,  have  made  a  bargain  with  some 
labor  union  for  the  delivery  of  so  many  men  at  so  much  per 
head,  which  is  equally  as  far  behind  the  progress  of  the  world 
as  the  other  method. 

As  we  have  become  more  and  more  an  industrial  people 
we  have  found  it  necessary  to  call  from  the  ranks  of  men 
whom  we  previously  considered  unfit,  those  who  now  do  rela- 

3 


—  4  — 

tively  fine  and  accurate  work.  As  we  have  done  this  we  have 
taken  away  from  the  great  rank  and  file  much  of  the  oppor- 
tunity for  advancement,  as  most  workers  now  know  only  a 
minute  fraction  of  the  processes  of  any  line  of  manufacture. 
It  may  be  said  that  this  is  as  much  the  fault  of  the  workers 
as  of  employers,  in  that  when  they  formed  their  unions  they 
should  have  made  a  reasonable  knowledge  and  skill  in  the 
trade  a  part  of  the  entrance  requirements.  But  employers 
who  set  themselves  up  to  be  big  brothers  and  fathers  to  their 
employees  cannot  gracefully  find  fault  with  them  for  not 
having  greater  foresight  than  they  themselves  exercised. 

But  the  past  has  gone  and  we  now  face  the  future,  so  the 
placing  of  the  fault  is  not  material.  What  needs  to  be  done 
is  to  build  up  a  working  force  the  world  over,  so  that  a  larger 
part  of  the  workers  may  actually  become  producers.  The 
part  of  the  proceeds  of  manufacture  which  the  most  profitable 
businesses  pay  to  the  owners  is  so  small,  compared  with  the 
part  that  goes  to  non-producing  workers,  that  it  is  very  much 
more  to  the  advantage  of  the  business  world  to  so  organize  its 
work  as  to  reduce  the  number  of  non-producers  rather  than  to 
quarrel  over  the  relatively  small  amount  which  is  taken  by 
the  manufacturer. 

At  present  we  are  suffering  a  great  economic  loss  due  to 
workmen  moving  around  from  job  to  job.  Many  of  these  men 
advance  themselves  each  time  they  move,  but  the  greater 
number  of  these  cases  represent  imaginary  opportunities. 
After  a  man  has  moved  from  one  job  to  another  a  few  times 
he  gets  to  consider  it  as  a  part  of  life,  and  then  he  moves  along 
without  any  thought  or  hope  of  ever  settling  down.  This  is 
all  curable,  but  it  is  not  cured  by  opening  an  employment 
department  nor  by  so-called  welfare  work,  but  by  establishing 
a  spirit  of  fair  play  and  mutual  helpfulness  from  the  top  of  the 
firm  down. 

The  foreman,  straw-boss,  or  whoever  comes  in  most  imme- 
diate contact  with  each  workman,  has  the  best  opportunity  to 
be  the  adviser  of  his  men.  His  efforts,  however,  must  be  taken 
up  with  administrative  detail  and  he  has  little  chance  to 
become  really  acquainted.  It  is  not  always  wise  for  him  to 
be  on  too  intimate  terms  with  them,  as  some  will  take  advan- 


5 

tage  of  the  acquaintance  and  try  to  secure  favors  and  advan- 
tages. He  can,  however,  be  square  with  his  subordinates. 
Too  many  are  known  by  their  men  to  be  apt  to  fly  off  in  a 
rage,  and  discharge  out  of  hand  any  one  who  dares  come  with 
a  complaint  or  a  suggestion.  Autocracy  in  its  most  violent 
form  prevails  in  most  shops  in  the  relations  of  the  foremen 
to  those  immediately  under  them,  and  it  exists  even  in  shops 
whose  general  managers  and  superintendents  intend  to  create 
the  very  best  working  conditions  possible.  They  have  no 
way  of  knowing  what  is  going  on,  for  very  few  workmen  dare 
speak  to  the  head  of  the  firm.  They  are  overwhelmed  indi- 
vidually, and  only  dare  see  him  in  a  group. 

It  therefore  becomes  the  duty  of  an  employee  relations 
organization  to  establish  a  contact  between  the  owners,  direc- 
tors, or  whatever  body  has  the  ultimate  responsibility,  and  the 
people  upon  whom  they  depend  for  the  actual  production  of 
the  goods  which  give  them  their  profit.  The  establishment 
of  a  direct  line  from  worker  to  the  highest  official  is  often 
resented  by  the  men  through  whose  hands  complaints,  peti- 
tions, etc.,  must  travel  as  they  consider  that  it  is  treading  on 
their  prerogatives  and  taking  away  their  authority.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  authority,  in  its  real 
sense,  possible  in  any  shop.  There  is  rule  by  fear  of  discharge, 
which  has  been  a  joke  for  the  past  few  years,  but  which  is 
just  as  possible  in  the  future  as  in  the  past.  Discharge  may  be 
direct  and  actual,  or  it  may  be  that  the  foreman  will  make 
things  so  unpleasant  for  a  certain  man  that  he  will  be  glad  to 
hunt  up  another  job.  Often  this  is  done  so  carefully  and  with 
such  a  wealth  of  experience  that  not  even  the  man  concerned 
realizes  what  has  happened  to  him. 

Another  important  part  of  the  work  of  the  employment 
department  should  deal  with  financial  relations  between  the 
concern  and  its  employees,  for  after  all  the  wages  paid  each 
worker  are  the  most  important  thing  which  he  gets  from  the 
company.  But  if,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  each  foreman  is 
allowed  to  fix  the  wages,  or  the  rating  of  his  men  without 
supervision  he  takes  on  another  autocratic  power  which  may 
be  very  harmful  to  the  company,  both  through  the  chances 
for  petty  graft  and  favoritism,  and  also  by  the  bad  effect 


—  6  — 

in  other  departments  through  the  dissemination  of  information. 

When  a  new  man  first  strikes  town  he  can  usually  find  out 
which  is  the  best  shop  in  his  line  of  work  and  also  which 
department  in  that  shop  is  considered  the  best.  Best,  in  this 
case,  meaning  the  same  thing  as  it  does  to  any  purchasing 
agent — where  he  can  get  the  most  for  the  least.  If  the  em- 
ployee relations  department  has  the  sole  function  of  standard- 
izing wages  and  ratings  between  departments  so  that  one  is 
as  desirable  as  another,  it  will  justify  its  cost  in  the  decreased 
flow  out  of  one  department  into  others.  Many  employers 
deceive  themselves  into  thinking  that  refusal  to  allow  transfers 
from  one  department  to  another  stops  the  flow.  But  it  does 
not.  Many  men  who  are  refused  permission  to  change  leave 
and  then  later  come  back,  perhaps  under  a  different  name,  into 
that  other  department. 

The  selection  of  men  and  women  for  their  jobs,  following 
them  up  to  find  out  whether  the  selections  were  good  or 
whether  the  employee  is  wasting  his  own  and  the  company's 
time,  is  still  another  function  of  the  employment  department 
that  has  received  a  great  deal  of  attention  on  paper,  but 
which  is  most  commonly  found  to  be  carried  out  very  much 
as  it  was  years  before  any  agitation  for  scientific  selection  was 
even  considered.  There  are  certain  qualifications  which  are 
assumed  in  every  man,  but  which  are  not  always  found.  We 
all  want  honest  workers ;  we  make  an  effort  to  find  out  whether 
the  applicant  has  ever  been  in  jail  for  thieving,  but  we  do 
nothing  to  find  out  whether  he  has  habitually  stolen  time 
which  he  has  sold  to  previous  employers.  We  are  at  fault 
here,  for  he  may  have  been  reformed  in  jail,  but  discharging 
a  man  for  laziness  has  no  reformatory  effect.  We  are  begin- 
ning to  inquire  into  a  man's  physical  soundness,  timidly  to  be 
sure,  but  with  an  intent  to  some  day  make  it  a  worth-while 
job;  but  we  make  no  inquiry  into  his  mental  health.  The 
number  of  men  who  were  taken  into  the  army  and  navy  from 
really  good  jobs  and  who  are  being  discharged  as  "constitution- 
ally inferior"  is  a  startling  reflection  on  employment  methods. 

We  make  no  effort  to  sort  out  men  by  temperament  or  dis- 
position. The  phlegmatic  are  placed  where  quick  action  is 
needed;  and  nervous,  high-strung  men  are  assigned  to  the 


7 

watchmen's  force.  The  only  change  which  has  actually  taken 
place  is  that  instead  of  men  being  turned  down  by  one  foreman 
and  not  knowing  who  else  to  apply  to,  they  are  now  candidates 
for  all  the  jobs  that  are  open. 

The  transportation  of  employees  to  and  from  work  is  an- 
other problem  which  should  receive  the  attention  of  the  em- 
ployment department.  The  fact  that  trolley  cars  or  trains  run 
between  the  plant  and  the  city  is  apparently  accepted  by  some 
employers  as  an  evidence  of  adequate  transportation,  espe- 
cially if  they  find  it  possible  to  keep  enough  names  on  the 
payroll  to  fill  the  shop.  They  do  not  ride  on  their  own  trains 
often  enough  to  find  out  what  are  the  real  conditions.  Just 
why  the  same  fare  should  be  charged  for  standing  room  in 
cars  that  should  have  been  condemned  years  ago,  and  on  runs 
where  a  snail's  pace  has  to  be  held  to  enable  an  inadequate 
train  crew  to  collect  the  fares,  as  is  charged  for  more  fortunate 
passengers  who  insist  on  plenty  of  room,  a  seat  for  everybody 
and  quick  passage,  is  something  for  the  employee  relations 
department  to  give  careful  consideration.  This  should  be 
done  not  merely  to  keep  down  labor  turnover,  but  to  bring  up 
the  spirits  and  the  physical  powers  of  the  men.  A  man  who 
has  ridden  for  an  hour  or  more  hanging  on  a  strap  in  an  ill- 
ventilated  car  cannot  go  to  work  with  a  vim  and  the  energy 
of  a  man  who  has  had  a  half  mile  or  a  mile  walk  from  his 
home,  or  a  ride  in  a  comfortable  seat  in  a  well-ventilated  car. 

Feeding  men  who  do  not  live  within  an  easy  walking  radius 
of  the  plant  is  still  another  of  the  so-called  smaller  problems 
of  the  employment  department  but  one  which  has  an  impor- 
tant bearing  on  the  preservation  of  good  business  relations. 
Practically  every  firm  declares  its  intention  of  giving  its  em- 
ployees food  at  cost,  and  most  of  them  do  it  below  actual  cost, 
though,  like  the  problem  of  training,  few  are  willing  to  face 
it  squarely  and  keep  a  record  which  includes  all  the  costs 
which  would  have  to  be  charged  to  it  if  it  were  run  by  an 
outside  commercial  organization. 

But  even  when  food  is  served  at  actual  cost  it  has  to  com- 
pete with  food  brought  from  home  where  the  cost  of  the 
major  materials  entering  into  it  are  all  that  are  taken  into 
account.  The-  workman's  wife  or  mother  does  the  work  of 


—  8  — 

cooking  and  putting  up  the  meal,  the  salt,  butter  and  other 
extras  come  out  of  the  family  store ;  in  fact,  very  little  is  pur- 
chased for  the  exclusive  purpose  of  filling  a  dinner  pail. 
Competition  with  this  method  is  impossible  except  as  the  em- 
ployer may  consider  that  it  is  profitable  for  him  to  invest  some 
money  in  the  better  health  for  his  employees. 

All  of  these  matters,  just  briefly  discussed,  and  in  some 
cases  still  others,  become  at  times  very  much  the  concern  of 
the  firm.  Its  greatest  danger  is  that  seeing  the  necessity  of 
doing  something  along  these  lines  to  make  it  possible  to  get 
and  keep  an  organization,  it  will  do  these  things  in  a  patroniz- 
ing paternal  way  and  so  offend  more  than  help.  Men  cer- 
tainly resent  being  treated  as  other  than  independent.  They 
may  not  agree  to  strike  in  a  body,  but  they  go  on  individual 
strikes  whenever  they  feel  that  their  individual  liberty  is 
being  curtailed. 

Certain  people  much  concerned  about  industrial  democracy 
are  suggesting  that  all  these  matters  be  given  over  to  repre- 
sentatives of  the  employees.  They  point  to  certain  quite 
successful  lunch  rooms,  and  to  many  successful  mutual  benefit 
associations,  thus  conducted.  They  overlook  the  fact,  how- 
ever, that  all  these  activities  require  the  investment  of  capi- 
tal which  the  workmen  do  not  have,  or  having  could  not  be 
advised  to  invest  in  a  firm  where  their  presence  is  dependent 
on  so  many  things  which  they  cannot  control.  Housing,  for 
instance,  requires  an  investment  of  capital.  It  is  quite  desir- 
able for  men  to  own  their  own  homes,  but  no  one  can  con- 
scientiously advise  a  workman  to  buy  a  home  in  a  "one  man" 
town.  All  sorts  of  unjust  and  unnecessary  squabbles  come 
up  in  such  places,  and  it  may  become  so  unpleasant  for 
himself  or  his  family  that  he  would  be  glad  to  give  away  his 
equity  in  the  house  for  the  sake  of  moving  away.  As  an  ideal 
to  be  carried  out  if  ever  the  time  comes  when  a  shop  consists 
of  a  stable  group  of  people  who  are  owners  as  well  as  workers, 
it  is  an  excellent  thing;  but  during  a  period  of  transition  which 
may  last  for  many  years  it  seems  to  be  impossible  for  one 
group  of  people  to  furnish  capital  with  which  another  and 
wholly  indeterminate  group  of  people  may  carry  on  a  business. 

This  is  further  complicated  by  the  fact  that  in  the  past 


—  9  — 

workmen  have  shown  poor  judgment  in  selecting  their  repre- 
sentatives. That  is,  they  have  been  represented  by  fighters 
rather  than  by  business  men.  No  doubt  employers  are 
much  to  blame  for  this,  as  they  have  seldom  met  an  organi- 
zation of  their  employees  on  a  business  basis  at  first,  but  have 
waited  until  forced  to  do  so  by  fighting  tactics.  On  the  other 
hand,  whenever  the  employers  have  met  their  employees 
on  common  ground  the  latter  have  too  many  times  persisted 
in  leaving  their  interests  in  the  hands  of  men  of  the  fighting 
type.  It  will  undoubtedly  be  a  long  time  before  mutual  con- 
fidence can  be  expected,  and  in  the  meantime  the  best  we  can 
probably  do  is  to  entrust  to  the  employment  department  the 
task  of  learning  the  views  of  workmen  and  preserving,  so  far 
as  may  be  possible,  the  rights  and  privileges  of  both  sides. 
It  can  only  do  this,  however,  if  it  is  in  the  confidence  of  both 
sides.  Its  function  must  be  largely  judicial,  and  it  must  be 
in  a  position  to  condemn  boldly  and  successfully  any  unfair 
dealings  no  matter  by  whom  sanctioned.  Furthermore,  the 
duties  of  the  head  of  the  employment  department  should  be  as 
important  in  the  eyes  of  the  board  of  directors  as  those  of 
any  member  of  the  organization  under  the  general  manager. 
He  should  be  intimately  acquainted  with  the  business,  its 
methods,  finances,  and  hoped  for  developments. 

There  are  few  manufactured  products  in  which,  if  all  the. 
steps  from  the  raw  material  through  to  finished  product  be 
considered,  the  bill  for  labor  is  not  the  largest  item.  This 
labor  is  for  something  which  cannot  be  bought  when  the 
market  is  low  and  sold  when  it  is  high.  If  not  used  moment 
by  moment  it  is  lost.  An  individual  firm  may  find  it  profitable 
at  times  to  slow  down  or  close,  but  the  community's  interest 
is  such  that  already  we  frown  on  such  a  practice.  In  other 
words,  we  are  all  gradually  recognizing  the  desirability  of  keep- 
ing the  wheels  turning  and  the  largest  possible  production 
going  forward  even  though  the  product  may  not  be  immedi- 
ately salable.  Does  not  the  control  of  this  largest  purchase 
which  we  make  demand  the  supervision  of  men  much  higher 
in  rank  than  the  foremen  and  overseers  to  whom  we  have 
formerly  and  even  now  so  largely  entrust  it? 


CHAPTER  II 
POLICIES  OF  MANAGEMENT 

IN  the  consideration  of  the  employment  problems  of  any 
concern  it  is  a  fundamental  statement,  and  one  that  cannot 
be  too  strongly  emphasized,  that  employment  management 
must  emanate  first  of  all  from  the  concern  itself.  The  em- 
ployment manager  can  no  more  accomplish  his  work  without 
official  backing  than  can  the  sales  manager  or  the  works  man- 
ager. This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  the  employment 
manager  should  work  with  his  hands  tied  but  rather  that  he 
should  work  with  the  knowledge  that  he  will  be  supported. 
He  may  be  experimenting,  but  it  must  be  the  company's 
experiment,  and  they  must  stand  or  fall  with  him.  Any  com- 
pany which  attempts  employee  relations  work  with  the  idea 
of  letting  some  one  "try  his  hand"  at  it  and  deciding  later 
whether  or  not  it  is  what  they  want  will  surely  fail. 

Backing  the  employment  department  merely  means  that 
the  company  takes  a  position  toward  its  employees  and  then 
announces  that  position.  The  employment  department  is  the 
executive  body  which  puts  these  principles  into  effect.  It 
may  be  and  should  be  foremost  in  formulating  the  ideas  and 
principles  for  which  it  stands,  but  before  any  principles  are 
announced,  or  even  tentatively  put  forward,  they  must  become 
the  principles  of  the  company.  The  methods  of  administra- 
tion, the  arrangement  of  the  offices,  the  forms  to  be  used,  and 
the  personnel  of  the  department  are  all  matters  that  the  com- 
pany management  will  seldom  wish  to  be  concerned  with, 
but  responsibility  for  policies  properly  rests  with  it. 

At  the  present  writing  the  thought  foremost  in  one's  mind 
in  this  connection  is  the  democratization  of  industry,  but  there 
are  other  matters  of  scarcely  less  importance  such  as  hours  of 

10 


—  11  — 

labor,  methods  of  paying,  housing,  transportation,  safety, 
health,  and  sanitation,  and  a  long  list  of  other  industrial  rela- 
tions on  all  of  which  it  is  necessary  to  have  a  complete  and 
well-defined  understanding  of  basic  principles.  Deciding  each 
case  on  its  merits  is  not  conducive  to  uniform  justice,  nor  is 
it  likely  to  lead  to  contentment  and  satisfaction  on  the  part 
of  the  employees. 

Above  all  these,  however,  there  towers  the  necessity  for 
a  uniform  and  established  principle  toward  the  method  of 
severing  connections  with  employees,  in  other  words  about 
"firing  help."  Whenever  it  becomes  possible  to  bring  labor 
turnover  near  the  zero  point,  or  even  to  the  small  percentage 
say  of  15  or  20  per  cent  per  year,  then  we  shall  have  to  be 
much  more  particular  about  the  justice  of  these  forced  de- 
partures, not  that  the  justice  of  the  case  will  be  any  different, 
but  because  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  new  job  will  be  so 
greatly  increased.  When  there  is  only  one-tenth  the  shifting 
about  of  men  it  will  be  ten  times  as  hard  for  a  man  to  find 
a  new  job,  and  a  job  will  then  become  a  prized  possession. 
It  will  also  become  as  much  a  crime  for  an  employer  to  take 
a  job  away  from  a  man,  without  due  process  of  law,  as  it  is 
for  him  now  to  take  land,  buildings,  or  money  in  the  same  way. 
This  principle  is  seldom  thought  of  in  this  light.  To-day  the 
privilege  of  working  in  a  given  shop  is  not  marketable,  nor 
would  it  be  so  if  the  privilege  were  transferable,  but  if  we 
succeed  in  accomplishing  one  of  the  most  recognized  objects 
for  which  employment  departments  are  organized,  these  rights 
will  then  have  a  value,  and  obviously,  having  a  value  will 
then  cease  to  be  something  that  can  be  taken  away  without 
recompense. 

In  a  lesser  degree  this  is  also  true  of  all  matters  which 
might  be  classed  under  the  name  of  welfare  work.  Gardens, 
games,  theatricals,  dining  rooms,  houses,  and  company  stores, 
all  these,  after  a  little  time,  become  prerogatives  rather  than 
things  to  be  appreciated.  They  become  a  part  of  the  wages 
paid  but  are  seldom  taken  into  account  when  comparisons 
are  being  made.  They  are  therefore  dangerous  matters  with 
which  to  experiment  unless  the  firm  is  fully  prepared  to  go 
through  with  them.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  expecta- 


•     —12  — 

tion  of  returns  from  the  employees,  and  this  is  almost  wholly 
summed  up  in  the  one  word,  production.  Production  must 
carry  the  firm,  its  welfare  work,  its  employee  relations,  and  a 
reasonable  profit,  or  else  sooner  or  later  the  firm  will  cease  to 
exist.  There  are  workers,  and  many  of  them,  who  fulfill  the 
socialist  idea  that  men  will  do  their  tasks  well  regardless  of 
the  amount  of  their  wage.  The  larger  number,  however,  must 
have  something  else  besides  ideals. 

Men  how  work  because  of  habit  or  necessity,  for  the  love 
of  money,  for  the  love  of  what  it  will  buy,  or  for  various  other 
reasons  all  of  which  can  be  classified  as  positive  or  negative. 
A  man  who  works  hard  through  fear  of  discharge,  fear  of  pov- 
erty, or  fear  of  losing  caste  in  his  world  cannot  put  forth  his 
best  efforts,  while  on  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  works 
because  more  money  will  add  to  his  happiness,  or  because  it 
is  a  pleasant  duty,  can  accomplish  wonders.  The  company's 
policy  should,  therefore,  be  based,  in  a  general  way,  upon 
whether  it  will  induce  men  to  work  for  it  in  this  latter  and 
positive  way,  or  whether  it  will  hire  the  type  of  brow-beating 
foremen  and  superintendents  who  go  on  the  theory  that  all 
men  are  crooked  and  will  not  work  unless  driven.  The  latter, 
of  course,  attract  to  themselves  the  kind  of  men  who  are  lazy 
and  crooked  and  who  do  not  mind  being  watched  since  they 
know  that  they  need  it. 

It  is  highly  important  that  every  shop  have  a  creed,  a 
general  statement  of  principles,  subject  to  change,  of  course, 
but  always  published,  and  always  lived  up  to,  so  that  when  a 
man  says  to  a  foreman,  "You  must  not  do  that  because  Article 
12  of  the  Code  says  that  you  must  do  otherwise,"  the  foreman 
will  know  that  Article  12  will  be  lived  up  to,  and  that  he  will 
be  held  accountable.  Such  a  creed  will  likewise  have  a  whole- 
some effect  when  the  foreman  can  point  to  a  set  of  rules  on 
the  wall  and  say,  "That  is  what  the  management  says  they 
will  back  me  up  in,  and  I  know  from  experience  that  they 
will  do  it." 

When  no  one,  not  even  the  management  itself,  knows  what 
principles  it  will  stand  for  to-morrow,  there  can  be  neither 
confidence  nor  lasting  plans  between  workmen  and  manage- 
ment. Stability  in  industry  comes  from  confidence  that  the 


—  13  — 

firm  has  the  capital  and  the  credit  to  establish  a  policy  and 
to  stick  to  it  through  thick  and  thin.  The  concern  does  this 
in  its  sales  and  in  its  manufacturing.  It  also  establishes  the 
belief  in  the  minds  of  its  customers  that  it  will  still  be  in 
business  in  the  years  to  come  and  ready  to  render  service.  It 
erects  its  buildings  with  a  view  to  the  future,  and  it  establishes 
its  credit  with  the  banks,  but  in  very  few  instances  does  it 
attempt  to  secure  for  the  future  the  good-will  of  its  employees. 
It  is  the  old-fashioned  concern  that  has  kept  men  in  its  employ 
twenty  or  thirty  years  that  can  hold  its  best  help,  and  such 
concerns  have  the  most  strongly  established  position  with  their 
men  because  they  have  maintained  a  uniform  policy  for  so 
many  years. 

A  concern  which  wishes  to  establish  itself  in  a  position 
wherein  it  will  not  be  troubled  by  strikes,  must  do  so  either  by 
this  slow  process  over  a  long  period  of  years,  or  else  it  must 
come  out  plainly  and  boldly  and,  with  nothing  concealed,  say 
to  its  men,  "Here  is  where  we  stand ;  if  you  come  to  work  for 
us  you  come  under  these  conditions  and  they  will  not  be 
changed  except  with  your  consent."  .This  sounds  drastic,  and 
yet  would  any  employer  make  a  deal  with  just  one  man  on 
any  other  basis?  Would  he  agree  to  sell  machinery  to  a  man 
at  a  given  rate  and  then  expect  to  change  the  rate  without 
consulting  him?  He  would  not,  and  he  could  not  if  he  wished. 
Nor  do  we  encourage  a  manufacturer  to  establish  a  factory 
in  our  town,  and  after  agreeing  to  purchase  a  supply  of  goods, 
without  notice  tell  him  we  have  changed  our  minds  and  that 
he  ought  not  to  have  located  in  our  town.  Such  a  case  is 
fairly  comparable  to  the  way  we  do  treat  our  employees.  The 
fact  that  last  week  we  told  one  of  our  men  that  he  was  doing 
the  best  work  in  the  shop  and  gave  him  a  raise  in  pay  does 
not  seem  to  be  the  least  bar  to  our  "firing"  him  next  week. 
If  men  realize  that  their  jobs  are  constantly  in  jeopardy,  and 
that  they  must  always  keep  packed  ready  to  move,  one  need 
not  wonder  that  they  do  move,  and  labor  turnover  will  be 
high  whenever  a  concern  has  no  established  policy  upon  which 
men  can  rely  for  the  continuance  of  their  jobs. 

It  is  not  enough,  however,  that  the  company  should  enun- 
ciate a  policy.  It  must  also  put  the  employment  department 


—  14  — 

in  a  position  to  see  that  its  policies  are  carried  out.  lit  can- 
not say  to  the  men,  "You  shall  not  be  discharged  without  a 
hearing  and  a  careful  study  of  your  case,"  and  then  have  the 
whole  plan  upset  by  a  foreman  who  demands  that  unless  a 
certain  man  be  "fired"  at  once  he  himself  will  leave.  It  is 
accordingly  just  as  necessary  that  the  foremen  understand  and 
acquiesce  in  the  principles  of  the  company  as  it  is  for  the 
men  to  agree  to  abide  by  them.  Such  relations  should  be  a 
whole-hearted  agreement,  with  no  reservations.  The  fore- 
man who  cannot  maintain  discipline  without  the  right  to  dis- 
charge should  not  remain  a  foreman.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he 
can,  and  probably  will,  accept  these  principles  without  any 
expectation  of  saying  "I  told  you  so"  every  time  that  some 
minor  hitch  occurs  in  their  application.  It  would  also  seem 
that  if  there  is  a  scheme  of  shop  committees,  there  should 
likewise  be  another  committee  of  foremen  who  could  present 
their  side  of  the  case,  for  while  they  represent  the  management, 
yet  in  a  shop  of  any  considerable  size  they  are  almost  as 
distant  from  it  as  the  workmen  themselves. 

Disagreements  are  certain  to  arise  for  honest  differences 
of  opinion  are  inevitable,  but  here  too  there  should  be  a  known 
principle  governing  the  company's  method  of  approach.  It 
should  not  be  left  to  the  foreman  to  smooth  out  a  threatened 
rupture  of  good  feeling  and  then  later  the  case  be  taken  over 
by  some  other  official.  Nor  should  it  be  the  duty  of  the  em- 
ployment department  to  attempt  to  settle  a  strike.  To  be 
sure  the  employment  department  has  its  judicial  functions, 
but  it  is  necessarily  in  a  rather  difficult  position,  because 
though  dependent  on  the  company  for  its  existence  it  must 
keep  an  "open  ear"  for  anything  that  savors  of  a  charge 
against  the  company  and  it  must  also  stand  for  the  right  no 
matter  how  partisan  it  might  care  to  be. 

In  the  settlement  of  disputes  the  employment  department 
can  usually  furnish  information  which  will  be  of  help  to 
both  sides  in  bringing  about  an  amicable  settlement,  but 
there  should  be  some  definite  official,  preferably  in  the  direc- 
torate, to  whose  attention  every  disagreement  which  threatens 
to  become  serious  may  be  brought.  In  this  case,  as  in  every 
other  similar  relation,  it  is  highly  important  that  there  be 


—  15  — 

a  definite  policy,  and  even  if  that  policy  is  a  bad  one,  the  fact 
that  it  is  known  to  the  employees  will  prevent  many  men 
from  placing  themselves  in  a  position  from  which  they  could 
not  make  a  good  retreat.  On  the  whole  a  policy  which  pro- 
vides that  all  sides  of  the  case  will  be  heard  by  some  one 
high  enough  in  the  organization  to  command  respect  is  the 
one  which  will  bring  the  largest  profits. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  only  type  of  employment  manager  who  deserves  the 
name  is  one  who  has  the  courage  of  his  convictions,  who 
loves  his  work  more  than  he  does  his  job,  and  who  is  willing,  if 
necessary,  to  lose  his  job  rather  than  break  faith  with  the 
employees  whom  he  has  hired  for  the  company.  In  other 
words,  his  is  a  missionary  job. 

The  works  manager  and  the  sales  manager  have  both  es- 
tablished themselves  as  necessities,  and  no  firm  ever  considers 
getting  along  without  them.  They  have  also  established  for 
themselves  certain  lines  of  credit.  The  works  manager  gets 
credit  for  low  cost  production ;  the  sales  manager  for  increased 
sales.  To  be  sure,  either  one  may  get  unearned  credit  or 
suffer  from  undeserved  losses,  but  they  know  the  standard  by 
which  they  will  be  judged  and  they  play  the  game  according 
to  the  rules. 

There  are  no  rules,  however,  by  which  the  employment 
manager  is  rated.  He  may  reduce  labor  turnover  from  500 
per  cent  to  100  per  cent,  but  if  he  figures  that  he  saved  the 
hiring  and  breaking  in  of  20,000  men,  and  that  each  man  would 
have  cost  $50  to  find  and  train,  and  he  therefore  tells  the  man- 
agement that  he  saved  them  a  million  dollars,  he  is  laughed  at 
for  his  pains.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  probably  saved  them 
a  great  deal  more  than  that  for  $50  is  a  low  figure  for  most 
shops.  However  until  there  is  a  standard  method  of  crediting 
the  employment  manager  with  what  he  accomplishes,  he  will 
continue  to  rank  with  the  minor  departments  of  the  office,  and 
be  looked  upon  as  a  necessary  evil  the  cost  of  which  must 
be  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

16 


—  17  — 

If  a  man  looks  on  employment  management  as  a  good  job 
and  one  that  he  wants  to  hold  indefinitely,  he  can,  by  a  num- 
ber of  subterfuges,  accomplish  a  great  deal  without  having  the 
real  cost  charged  up  to  his  department.  He  may,  for  example, 
secure  separate  accounts  for  safety,  hospitals,  and  educational 
work,  and  he  can  also  get  a  great  deal  of  work  done  by  men 
whose  salaries  are  charged  against  other  departments.  An 
educational  department  against  which  there  is  charged  only 
the  salary  of  the  director  and  one  or  two  clerks  looks  like  a 
very  inexpensive  department,  but  if  the  time  of  the  different 
foremen  who  act  as  instructors  were  charged  against  the  edu- 
cational department  the  directors  would  most  likely  decide 
that  it  would  be  much  cheaper  to  consolidate  all  educational 
work  and  secure  full-time  instructors.  The  same  is  true  of 
many  other  of  the  schemes  which  are  used  by  employment 
managers,  safety  engineers,  or  educational  directors  to  cover 
up  their  expenses  and  make  themselves  so  inconspicuous  that 
their  jobs  will  not  be  taken  away  from  them. 

Since  an  employment  manager  must  have  the  spirit  of  a 
missionary,  and  since  there  is  at  present  no  accepted  way  of 
measuring  what  he  accomplishes,  it  is  quite  likely  that  he 
will  not  ask  for  all  of  the  salary  that  he  deserves;  consequently 
salaries  are  bound  to  be  low.  Many  men,  however,  are  at- 
tracted to  this  work  because  the  salaries  which  are  paid  seem 
high  to  them,  and  it  is  a  problem  for  the  concern  to  distinguish 
between  the  real  employment  manager  and  the  time  server. 

There  are  all  kinds  of  people  making  good  in  this  work: 
graduates  of  colleges  and  of  the  school  of  hard  knocks,  and 
men  and  women  of  every  imaginable  type.  There  are,  however, 
resemblances  which  are  noticeable  as  soon  as  one  talks  with 
them;  resemblances  which  are  visible  at  their  conventions  no 
matter  how  much  they  may  disagree  among  themselves,  and 
which  revolve  around  the  coming  of  a  day  of  better  under- 
standing between  managers  and  men,  rather  than  any  rela- 
tions between  capital  and  labor.  There  is  also  the  common 
desire  to  act  as  intermediaries  between  men  and  their  em- 
ployers and  to  get  them  to  see  that  their  interests  really  lie 
in  the  same  direction.  Get  a  man  with  the  desire  to  help 
straighten  out  the  labor  tangle,  find  out  if  he  has  common 


—  18  — 

sense,  see  if  he  has  worked  with  his  hands,  pay  him  enough 
salary,  give  him  an  office  every  bit  as  good  as  the  works  or 
sales  manager,  and  then  give  him  authority  commensurate 
with  the  salary  and  the  office  and  you  will  have  an  employ- 
ment manager.  But  the  man  with  the  most  self-sacrificing 
spirit  in  the  world  will  fail  if  he  does  not  have  the  open  and 
well-advertised  backing  of  the  management,  and  that  comes 
through  apparent  favor.  The  management  always  gives  the 
men  on  whom  it  relies  money  enough  to  keep  up  good  appear- 
ances and  offices  suited  to  their  position.  That  is  the  com- 
pany's way  of  advertising  its  standing  to  the  world  and  to  its 
other  employees. 

Perhaps  to-day  most  successful  employment  managers  are 
so-called  educated  men,  but  it  does  not  require  much  formal 
education  to  do  the  work  of  the  employment  manager.  There 
are,  however,  more  capable  men  acquiring  an  education  now 
than  ever  before,  and  many  concerns  demand  that  their  em- 
ployment manager  be  a  graduate  of  a  college  or  technical 
school.  This  assumption  presents  somewhat  of  a  handicap  to 
the  man  who  aspires  to  work  of  this  nature,  because,  without 
the  slightest  excuse  for  it,  employers  are  tending  toward  mak- 
ing a  college  or  technical  school  education  an  essential  quali- 
fication for  this  and  other  jobs  which  have  little  need  of  such 
training. 

If  the  head  of  the  department  is  wise  he  will  educate  him- 
self in  the  ways  of  the  shop  and  office  before  he  starts  to  work. 
It  is  not  necessary  that  he  actually  work  in  every  department, 
but  if  he  has  not  done  similar  work  he  ought  at  least  to  try 
it  long  enough  to  find  out  just  how  much  he  can  do  without 
getting  completely  tired  out.  He  should  also  be  familiar  with 
all  the  jobs  which  his  assistants  and  subordinates  are  to  do, 
for  his  own  protection  if  nothing  else.  As  far  as  training 
for  employment  management  goes  it  is  unnecessary  for  a  man 
of  intelligence  to  go  to  a  special  school,  for  there  is  plenty  of 
printed  material  to  give  him  the  necessary  information.  Codes 
for  the  guidance  of  the  profession  have  not  as  yet  been  estab- 
lished, neither  are  there  professional  secrets,  and  every  em- 
ployment manager  is  ready  to  tell  his  experiences  and  is  eager 
to  hear  those  of  others. 


—  19  — 

Perhaps  some  day  our  engineering  schools  will  establish 
courses  in  employment  management  but  they  will  not  be  so 
much  courses  in  employment  management  as  they  will  be 
courses  in  business  management  and  common  sense.  The 
principal  problem  in  this  profession  is  to  think  one's  way 
out  of  the  difficulties  which  arise  from  moment  to  moment. 
When  a  foreman  threatens  to  throw  up  a  job.  he  has  held  for 
twenty  years  unless  a  certain  man  is  "thrown  out"  of  the  shop, 
and  all  the  evidence  brought  before  the  employment  manager 
proves  that  the  man  was  right  and  the  foreman  wrong,  there 
is  need  of  some  quick  thinking  on  the  part  of  the  manager  for 
he  must  so  present  the  case  to  the  foreman  that  the  latter  will 
realize  how  unfair  he  has  been.  This,  of  course,  cannot  always 
be  accomplished,  and  it  is  sometimes  wonderful  how  long 
service  makes  a  superintendent  blind  to  inefficiency  and  pig- 
headedness.  It  is  problems  such  as  these  which  take  up  the 
time  of  employment  managers  rather  than  the  problems  of 
larger  magnitude  which  are  discussed  at  their  conventions. 

Industry  is  based  on  the  need  of  men  for  work,  and  only 
within  the  past  few  months  has  there  been  any  consideration 
of  the  problem  which  arises  when  labor  can  pick  and  choose 
its  work.  It  looks  now  as  though  this  new  state  of  affairs 
might  never  revert  to  the  old.  Men  are  finding  it  possible 
to  maintain  high  wages,  and  employers  are  not  going  to  sacri- 
fice their  profits.  Many  an  employer  has  sworn  that  he  would 
never  advance  wages  a  cent,  but  he  has  quickly  done  so  when 
the  way  to  profitably  advance  them  has  been  shown  to  him. 

From  time  to  time  courses  have  been  offered  in  employ- 
ment management.  Such  courses  have  included  the  systems 
used,  the  layout  of  the  department,  and  all  the  other  items  of 
lesser  importance,  and  while  a  knowledge  of  these  is  desirable 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  employer,  they  are  not  a  sub- 
stitute for  any  very  large  part  of  the  real  job.  Any  firm 
which  wishes  to  install  an  employment  department  can  call 
in  an  expert,  and  for  a  couple  of  hundred  dollars  secure  a 
layout.  For  a  few  hundred  more  they  can  obtain  a  full  set 
of  necessary  forms,  but  they  are  still  a  long  way  from  having 
an  employment  department.  But  when  they  have  secured  a 
man  who  has  the  nerve  to  tell  his  boss  what  is  wrong  with 


—  20  — 

him  and  the  departments  under  him,  then  the  firm  is  in  a 
fair  way  to  have  an  employment  department. 

Almost  every  manufacturing  plant  has  its  weak  points  and 
the  men  usually  know  what  they  are.  Sometimes  they  cannot 
tell  what  the  difficulty  is  in  terms  that  can  be  understood  by 
the  general  manager,  but  the  employment  manager  should 
understand  them  and  he  should  be  able  to  translate 
them  for  the  men  higher  up.  Many  of  these  troubles 
appear  trifling  in  the  eyes  of  the  management,  but  un- 
til the  grievance  has  been  removed  there  will  be  neither 
peace  nor  comfort.  How  many  plants  could  depend  on  retain- 
ing the  same  foreman  if  the  workmen  were  to  vote  on  the 
question,  even  though  they  were  limited  in  voting  to  the  old 
reliable  men,  and  secret  ballots  were  taken?  One  of  the  largest 
jobs  of  an  employment  manager  is  accordingly  to  discover  the 
hidden  practices  of  the  foremen.  An  employment  manager 
should  not  be  hostile  to  the  foremen,  but  ought  to  know 
which  foremen  should  be  replaced. 

The  ability  to  handle  such  problems  is  not  acquired  in  a 
school,  for  the  employment  manager  graduated  from  the  best 
school  imaginable  possesses  only  the  skeleton  of  his  profession ; 
the  rest  he  must  obtain  by  experience.  He  can  be  sure  of  one 
thing,  however,  and  that  is  that  all  the  information  he  can 
obtain  will  be  of  value  to  him.  He  needs  to  be  the  best  in- 
formed man  in  the  place,  not  only  about  his  own  company 
methods  and  processes,  but  about  those  of  other  industries  as 
well.  He  needs  to  know  what  a  man  means  when  he  applies 
for  a  job  and  says  that  he  has  had  five  years'  experience  at 
"pulling  over"  or  at  "vamping."  He  needs  to  know  the  ways 
of  the  firms  which  are  competing  for  help,  so  that  if  a  man 
comes  and  claims  that  he  was  short  changed  at  Brown's  shop 
he  will  know  whether  such  was  really  the  case  or  whether  some 
money  was  taken  out  of  his  pay  envelope  to  cover  his  mutual 
benefit  dues.  He  needs  also  to  know  that  one  of  his  own 
foremen  may  be  a  most  excellent  man  when  supplied  with 
Polish  workers  but  worthless  if  supplied  with  Italians. 
Knowledge  of  matters  such  as  these  results  from  observation 
and  cannot  be  taught  in  any  school.  This  is  probably  the 
reason  why  men  of  such  diverse  training  have  made  good  in 


—  21  — 

these  positions.  Any  training  in  fact  which  sharpens  the 
powers  of  observation,  which  brings  a  man  into  contact  with 
his  fellow  men,  and  which  teaches  him  to  find  out  what  they 
think,  is  good  training ;  the  rest  is  merely  a  matter  of  develop- 
ment on  the  job. 

If  the  firm  is  in  a  state  of  development,  and  does  not  know 
whether  they  want  an  employment  department  or  not,  and 
furthermore  does  not  want  to  spend  much  money  experiment- 
ing with  one,  then  they  will  be  very  likely  to  do  one  of  two 
things,  either  promote  some  clerk  in  the  pay  roll  department 
to  the  job,  or  else  secure  the  graduate  of  some  school  who  has 
a  diploma  certifying  to  the  completion  of  a  course  in  employ- 
ment management.  In  either  instance  they  may  develop,  and 
ultimately  have  a  full-fledged  employment  department.  The 
chances,  however,  are  rather  against  them ;  for  such  cases  seem 
to  be  another  one  of  those  instances  in  which  the  Topsy 
who  was  not  born  but  "just  growed"  is  not  likely  to  be  re- 
ceived into  the  family  organization  on  an  even  footing  with 
the  departments  which  have  held  high  favor  with  the  manage- 
ment in  the  past.  In  order  that  the  employment  manager 
possess  the  standing  which  is  a  prerequisite  for  success,  it  is 
therefore  necessary  that  the  position  be  filled  by  some  one 
from  outside  the  organization,  or  else  by  some  one  from  inside 
who  is  already  known  to  stand  high  in  the  estimation  and 
favor  of  the  general  manager.  The  graduate  must,  unless  he 
has  had  previous  experience  in  some  line  which  makes  him 
eligible  for  a  large  job,  content  himself  with  a  position  as  an 
interviewer,  a  follow-up  man,  or  some  subordinate  job  until 
he  makes  a  reputation  for  himself.  It  is  also  very  unlikely 
that  he  can  hope  to  jump  into  a  position  which  pays  any 
considerable  salary  and  which  leads  in  any  direct  way  to  re- 
sponsibility for  the  work. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  MACHINERY  OF  EMPLOYMENT 

T  TSUALLY  the  management  considers  that  it  has  done  its 
\^J  full  duty  when  it  has  provided  the  employment  depart- 
ment with  an  office  fully  equipped  in  keeping  with  the 
position  which  it  feels  that  the  department  should  have.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  this  is  only  providing  machinery,  and  while 
such  machinery  is  absolutely  essential  to  the  conduct  of  the 
business  of  employment,  yet,  with  nothing  back  of  it,  it  is  a 
poor  investment.  As  has  been  said  before,  an  employment 
department  is  only  effective  when  it  becomes  the  authoritative 
mouthpiece  of  the  management,  and  the  machinery  of  the 
department  cannot  become  such.  If  the  management  is  not 
visibly  back  of  the  department  the  department  ceases  to  be 
of  value,  and  all  its  machinery  is  worthless. 

The  employment  department  naturally  cannot  function 
without  a  place  in  which  to  meet  candidates  for  jobs.  The 
place  may  be  in  the  works,  it  may  be  down-town,  or  it  may 
even  be  a  room  in  some  distant  hotel,  but  wherever  it  is  the 
firm  cannot  afford  to  have  it  reflect  other  than  the  prosperity 
of  the  company.  Figure  1  shows  an  excellent  type  of  room ;  it 
is  clean,  and  well  lighted  and  ventilated,  but  the  benches  are 
not  so  inviting  as  to  make  the  room  a  loafing  place.  Too  often 
men  applying  for  jobs  get  the  idea  that  the  company  is  nig- 
gardly from  their  first  contact  with  the  waiting  room  of  the 
employment  department.  Managers  questioned  as  to  the 
reason  for  the  dark,  dirty,  and  unattractive  waiting  rooms 
excuse  them  by  saying  that  the  kind  of  men  who  apply  are 
not  worthy  of  any  better  quarters,  or  that  it  is  impossible  for 
them  to  be  kept  clean  on  account  of  the  filthiness  of  the  men 
who  congregate  in  them.  These  statements,  however,  simply 

22 


—  23  — 

reflect  the  opinion  of  the  observer.  It  is  true  that  many  men 
are  seeking  work  in  our  shops  and  factories  who  are  not  pleas- 
ant to  look  at,  but  they  are  Americans  in  the  making,  and  we 
cannot  afford  to  overlook  the  fact  that  we  have  a  chance  here 
to  speed  up  the  making. 

Cleanliness  is,  of  course,  not  obtainable  without  action. 
Because  a  place  was  clean  last  week  is  no  reason  for  expecting 
it  to  be  clean  next  week,  unless  something  is  done  to  make  it 


FIGURE  1. 


WAITING  ROOM  OF  THE  EMPLOYMENT  DEPARTMENT  AT  THE  LYNN 
WORKS  OF  THE  GENERAL  ELECTRIC  COMPANY. 


so.  If  the  waiting  room  is  built  for  easy  cleaning,  as  all  rooms 
ought  to  be,  and  is  always  clean  when  a  new  crowd  enters  it, 
a  surprisingly  small  amount  of  attention  will  be  required.  In 
one  well-known  waiting  room  where  from  30,000  to  40,000 
men  gathered  in  a  year  the  greatest  amount  of  cleaning  was 
made  necessary  by  a  dozen  office  people  who  gathered  there  at 
noon  to  play  cards.  So,  first  of  all,  the  employment  depart- 
ment needs  a  waiting  room  large  enough  to  accommodate  the 
applicants  with  seats  during  ordinary  days  and  to  shelter  peak 
loads  with  men  standing  not  uncomfortably  near  together.  Ex- 
perience indicates  this  area  to  be  in  the  vicinity  of  10  square 


•—24  — 

feet  per  man  employed  each  week.  That  is,  a  concern  hiring 
120  men  per  week  would  require  a  waiting  room  of  1200 
square  feet,  or  about  30  feet  by  40  feet.  If  this  is  made  with  a 
concrete  floor,  with  a  very  slight  pitch  toward  a  drain,  and  the 
base  board  is  also  of  concrete  and  carried  up  high  enough 
so  that  the  room  can  be  easily  and  safely  flushed  and  mopped 
out,  there  will  be  no  trouble  about  cleanliness. 

The  greatest  peak  load  in  the  waiting  room  usually  occurs 
on  Monday  and  Tuesday  mornings  before  ten  o'clock. 
The  type  of  man  available  at  these  times  is  especially  poor 
and  consequently  it  is  difficult  to  have  a  great  deal  of  com- 
passion for  the  majority  of  them.  It  is  seldom  that  a  really 
capable  man  comes  in  early  on  either  day.  After  ten  o'clock, 
however,  the  desirable  men  come  in  by  ones  and  twos,  and 
they  continue  to  come  the  rest  of  the  day  and  week.  These 
men  need  prompt  attention  and  comfortable  quarters  while 
they  are  waiting  for  an  interview  because  they  are  more  sensi- 
tive and  high-strung  than  the  Monday  morning  crowd.  They 
are  also  more  independent.  It  is  an  excellent  idea  to  have  a 
fair-sized  waiting  room  beyond  the  main  waiting  room  into 
which  the  more  likely  appearing  men  can  be  admitted. 

Most  of  the  Monday  and  Tuesday  morning  applicants  can 
be  dismissed  without  consideration,  although  it  is  probably 
wise  to  take  a  brief  record  of  each  man,  if  for  no  other  purpose 
than  to  have  statistics  available  as  to  the  flow  of  labor  toward 
the  shop.  For  this  purpose  all  that  is  needed  is  a  simple 
form  giving  the  applicant's  name,  address,  last  shop  worked 
in,  kind  of  work  done,  wages  expected,  and,  possibly,  age. 
Statistics  concerning  the  last  shop  in  which  the  applicant 
worked  are  also  desirable  as  they  indicate  the  state  of  employ- 
ment in  that  shop.  For  example,  if  a  given  week  shows  a 
great  increase  in  the  number  of  applicants  who  have  formerly 
worked  in  a  neighboring  plant  it  may  mean  that  the  neigh- 
boring plant  has  not  kept  wages  up  to  the  market,  or  that 
there  is  an  unpopular  foreman,  or  that  some  new  rule  is  dis- 
liked or  an  old  one  is  being  enforced.  At  all  events  it  indicates 
a  possible  supply  of  men  which  can  well  be  sought  out.  It 
is  surprising  how  many  times  a  foreman  in  another  shop  will 
often  unwittingly  help  to  secure  an  excellent  supply  of  labor. 


At  the  same  time  that  there  is  a  flow  of  help  into  the  wait- 
ing room  there  should  be  a  flow  of  requisitions  from  the  fore- 
men or  superintendents  so  that,  as  far  as  possible,  the  right 
man  will  be  given  the  right  job.  Theoretically,  there  should 
be  a  written  requisition  for  each  man  wanted  and  it  should 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  employment  manager  a  considerable 
length  of  time  before  the  man  is  needed  in  the  shop.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  it  is  common  practice  to  find  that 
the  requisition,  if  made  out  by  the  foreman  at  all,  is  made 
out  after  he  has  the  man  at  work,  and  this  is  known  as  "co- 
operation" on  the  part  of  the  employment  department.  Such 
procedure  is  unfair  to  the  employment  department.  It  comes 
about  through  men  leaving  without  notice,  or  the  foreman 
not  discovering  that  men  have  left  until  a  week  or  two  after  it 
has  happened.  Then  he  is  ready  to  overlook  all  formalities 
and  cut  all  red  tape  to  get  a  man  quickly  so  that  when  the 
superintendent  comes  around  he  will  not  find  an  idle  machine. 
Consequently,  he  will  take  any  one  and  with  very  little  inquiry 
as  to  his  ability.  The  machine  runs,  the  department  looks 
busy,  and  everything  is  all  right,  except  production.  More- 
over, the  shops  whose  superintendents  think  they  have  the 
hardest  working  forces  usually  have  a  great  deal  of  "Miis  kind 
of  work  because  they  have  the  most  men  leaving  the  job 
without  notice.  This  can  only  be  cured  if  the  employment 
department  has  the  management  sufficiently  back  of  it  to 
insist  on  time  to  find  the  right  man  for  the  job,  and  this  in- 
sistence will  save  a  great  deal  of  the  rapid  turnover  which 
to-day  is  so  prevalent. 

It  is  almost  always  found  that  the  men  who  stay  only  a 
few  days  are  the  men  who  were  hired  hastily,  and  who  were 
not  acquainted  in  detail  with  what  was  expected  of  them. 
It  is  all  right  for  a  foreman  to  say  that  he  only  hires  the  men 
who  are  willing  to  do  anything,  but  after  they  have  spoiled  an 
expensive  job  they  find  some  way  to  cover  it  up  and  leaving 
by  the  back  door  they  never  come  back,  not  even  for  their 
pay.  Willingness  to  do  anything  for  a  given  number  of  dollars 
and  ability  to  do  it  should  not  be  confused. 

Written  requisitions  should  be  insisted  upon,  so  far  as 
possible,  and  the  employment  department  should  only  treat 


—  26  — 

as  emergency  cases  those  which  are  emergencies  and  not  im- 
providence. If  unconfirmed  telephone  messages  are  accepted 
the  condition  will  surely  arise  when  foremen  will  explain  high 
labor-turnover  in  their  departments  on  the  ground  that  the 
employment  department  sent  them  there,  which  is  awk- 
ward for  that  department  unless  they  are  able  to  show  the 
requisitions  on  which  they  were  sent.  The  question  of 
whether  the  requisitions  should  originally  come  from  the  straw 
boss,  immediately  over  the  men,  the  foreman,  the  superintend- 
ent, or  the  works  manager  is  one  which  depends  on  the  re- 
sponsibility which  is  placed  on  these  men.  Generally  speak- 
ing, it  is  hardly  fair  to  place  responsibility  on  a  foreman 
without  giving  him  control  over  his  department.  If  the  straw 
boss  is  simply  a  mouthpiece  for  the  foreman,  he  should  not  be 
allowed  to  make  his  own  requisitions  for  unlimited  numbers 
of  men.  If  it  is  the  foreman  who  is  held  responsible,  he  should 
be  the  man  to  make  the  requisition,  and  it  should  not  be  sub- 
ject to  approval  by  any  one  higher  up,  unless  that  person 
does  actually  keep  track  of  all  the  requisitions  which  go 
through  his  hands. 

When  the  works  manager  has  the  requisitions  go  through 
his  hands  purely  as  a  matter  of  form  it  only  slows  down  the 
work  without  doing  anybody  any  good.  He  may  imagine 
that  others  think  he  inspects  them,  but  he  fools  only  himself. 
So  far  as  the  number  of  workers  is  concerned,  the  works 
manager  should  have  a  comparative  statement,  week  by  week, 
or  month  by  month,  showing  the  number  in  each  department 
and  also,  wherever  possible,  figures  showing  the  production  in 
the  same  departments.  If  such  information  is  put  in  graph- 
ical form  it  is  much  more  easily  read  than  if  tabulated. 

The  requisitions  should  be  as  explicit  as  possible.  They 
should  not  merely  call  for  a  man  for  a  given  department,  but 
they  should  state  specifically  what  he  is  expected  to  do.  This 
is  not  for  the  purpose  of  obstructing  transfers,  but  to  give  the 
employment  department  a  fair  chance  to  select  a  suitable  man. 
The  large  number  of  wounded  soldiers  now  being  trained  and 
placed  in  shops  has  brought  our  attention  more  strongly  than 
ever  to  a  realization  of  the  fact  that  most  men  have  limitations 
and  that  willingness  to  "do  anything"  does  not  guarantee  abil- 


—  27  — 

ity.  It  is  usually  inadvisable  to  establish  wage  limits,  as  the 
foreman  who  puts  on  a  wage  limit  might  take  it  off  if  he  saw 
the  applicants.  But,  whether  wage  limits  are  specified  or  not, 
if  each  man  is  supposed  to  be  hired  on  his  ability  and  experi- 
ence it  is  absurd  to  set  one  in  advance  of  seeing  the  man.  In 
some  cases  what  is  really  meant  is  descriptive  in  its  nature 
rather  than  limiting.  When  a  foreman  calls  for  a  fourteen 
dollar  a  week  girl  for  his  office  he  may  mean  the  kind  of  a  girl 
that  will  usually  work  for  fourteen  dollars.  He  may  be  very 
much  pleased  to  take  on  a  sixteen  dollar  a  week  girl  when  he 
sees  her. 

The  requisitions  and  the  applicants  should  meet  each  other 
at  the  door  of  the  interviewing  room.  The  undesirable  should 
be  weeded  at  the  door,  only  a  mere  record  as  previously  sug- 
gested being  taken,  and  remainder  of  the  men  admitted  to 
the  interviewing  room.  These,  for  the  most  part,  will  be 
available  for  employment.  The  interview  is  perhaps  the  most 
important  work  which  the  employment  department  is  called 
upon  to  do.  It  is  not  always  done  with  that  thought,  however, 
but  possibly  more  often  with  the  idea  that  such  a  task  con- 
sists in  getting  some  sort  of  answers  to  a  set  of  questions. 
Done  in  this  spirit  it  is  no  better  than  the  old  way  of  hiring 
men  on  their  looks. 

It  would  be  better  if  the  interviewer  who  makes  the  deci- 
sion did  not  fill  out  any  blanks  but  simply  talked  with  the 
candidates,  and  another  man,  who  might  be  little  more  than 
a  clerk,  secured  the  written  data.  The  principal  objection  to 
the  latter  system,  however,  is  that  the  original  interviewer, 
the  man  who  decides,  does  not  have  anything  to  remind  him 
of  the  points  which  he  should  consider  before  making  his  de- 
cision. He  is  liable,  therefore,  to  give  a  very  short  interview 
to  a  man  if  some  one  point  about  him  is  especially  favorable. 
He  thus  loses  the  chance  to  touch  on  the  candidate's  weak 
points,  knowledge  of  which  is  exceedingly  important.  Possibly 
this  can  be  overcome  if  the  interviewer  makes  a  report  giving 
his  impressions  as  to  activity,  loyalty,  willingness  to  work,  etc., 
and  leaves  only  those  items  which  are  positive  facts  to  be 
entered  by  the  clerk.  It  is  more  the  custom,  however,  to 
divide  the  job  differently,  and  have  a  preliminary  interviewer, 


—  28  — 

who  sorts  out  the  unemployable  and  then  routes  the  likely 
men  to  different  interviewers  through  their  clerks.  If  the 
final  interviewers  are  men  skilled  in  the  trades  for  which  they 
are  interviewing  this  makes  a  very  good  system,  its  worst 
feature  being  that  it  is  a  system  and  not  a  human  way  of 
making  a  selection. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  organize  the  employment  of  any 
considerable  number  of  men  in  such  a  way  that  much  of  the 
human  element  is  left  in  it,  and  yet  that  is  the  fundamental 
reason  for  having  an  employment  department.  The  passing 
of  a  candidate  from  one  interviewer  to  another  and  the  filling 
out  of  a  multiplicity  of  forms  do  not  impress  him  favorably. 
The  less  the  candidate  has  to  do  himself  the  more  of  his 
friends  he  will  advise  to  come  around  and  apply  for  jobs. 
The  exception  to  this  is  found  in  the  more  moderately  paid 
office  help  who  appear  to  be  impressed  with  the  size  and 
intricacy  of  the  application  blank  which  they  are  asked  to 
fill  out.  In  the  shop,  however,  it  is  better  for  the  applicant 
to  see  as  little  as  possible  of  the  machinery  of  the  department. 

How  much  of  purely  personal  detail  it  is  wise  to  ask  for  is 
a  question,  for  beyond  a  certain  point  almost  any  man  will 
either  drop  the  matter  in  disgust  or  else  lie  about  it,  and 
in  either  case  the  employment  manager  fails  in  his  purpose. 
This  point  is  much  further  advanced  now  than  it  was  even  a 
few  years  ago.  The  draft  questionnaires,  the  income  tax  re- 
turns, and  the  minute  care  which  was  taken  all  through  the 
war  to  discover  possible  disloyalty  have  all  helped  to  make  us 
less  careful  of  our  secrets,  and  possibly  also  to  have  fewer 
of  them.  At  all  events,  no  man  of  to-day  goes  into  the  em- 
ployment office  of  a  concern  of  over  five  hundred  men  without 
expecting  to  answer  a  long  and  rather  searching  list  of  ques- 
tions. Some  of  these  questions  are  impertinent  to  the  contract 
about  to  be  made,  for  after  all  hiring  a  man  is  making  a 
contract,  to  be  sure  a  contract  easily  broken  by  either  side  and 
too  often  lightly  entered  into,  but  a  contract  nevertheless. 

It  is  the  object  of  the  contract  to  secure  for  one  party  the 
services  of  an  individual  who  will  perform  a  certain  work,  the 
exact  nature  of  which,  however,  is  usually  unknown  to  both 
parties,  and  for  the  other  party  to  sell  certain  very  indefinite 


—  29  — 

services  for  the  largest  possible  price  and  under  the  most 
advantageous  terms.  A  contract  thus  made  under  such  loose 
conditions  is  necessarily  dangerous  to  both  parties,  and  should 
only  be  entered  into  by  men  of  the  most  rigid  honor.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  it  is  entered  into  by  all  kinds  of  men  on  both 
sides  and  also  very  carelessly  in  most  instances.  This  is  one 
of  the  reasons  for  the  large  labor  turnover  which  is  so  preva- 
lent. "The  green  field  just  over  the  fence/'  in  some  other 
shop  looks  so  very  good  to  the  man  working  in  our  shop  that 
he  cannot  be  convinced  that  he  is  wrong  in  leaving  except  by 
trying  it.  When  he  tries,  He  finds  there  are  just  about  the 
same  number  of  things  which  are  disagreeable  about  the  new 
.job  that  there  were  about  the  old  one,  and  so  he  becomes  a 
sadder  but  not  necessarily  a  much  wiser  man. 

After. he  has  jumped  about  from  shop  to  shop  for  ten  or 
fifteen  years  it  begins  to  dawn  upon  him  that  all  shops  are 
about  alike.  Employers  cut  their  eye  teeth  earlier  in  the 
game  and  so  they  soon  give  up  hoping  for  an  organization 
that  will  always  be  loyal.  Such  a  state  of  affairs  will  prob- 
ably remain  about  as  it  is  until  proprietors  discover  how  little 
they  know  about  the  work  being  done  by  their  men.  Then  it 
may  be  possible  to  place  employment  on  a  more  stable  plane, 
and  the  contract  may  be  a  definite  one  with  which  both  parties 
are  acquainted. 

In  no  case,  however,  does  this  contract  become  a  matter  of 
religion,  membership  in  secret  or  other  societies,  the  man's 
state  of  divorce  or  marriage,  or  his  debts.  If  these  questions 
are  asked  it  is  either  for  the  sake  of  asking  questions,  or  for 
the  sake  of  finding  out  something  which  is  not  pertinent  to 
the  contract.  It  may  be  that  they  are  asked  in  order  to 
determine,  in  the  mind  of  the  interviewer,  the  status  of  the 
man's  character,  which  is  all  very  well  if  the  position  is  one 
of  trust  and  responsibility,  but  character  is  something  so  often 
a  matter  of  environment  that  it  seems  hardly  possible  that 
a  man  can  have  other  than  a  good  character  if  he  is  in  the 
right  surroundings.  It  is  much  more  to  the  point  to  be  able 
to  say  to  the  applicant  that  the  shop  is  fit  for  a  man  to  work 
in  than  it  is  to  know  whether  he  attends  church  and  whether 
that  church  is  the  one  favored  by  the  works  manager.  It 


—  30  — 

will  also  be  likely  to  have  more  effect  on  his  character  to  be 
in  surroundings  where  the  Golden  Rule  is  practiced  six  days 
in  the  week  than  to  go  to  church  for  an  hour  or  so  on  Sunday. 

Inquiry  into  one's  membership  in  secret  societies  or  labor 
unions  comes  in  the  same  category.  If  the  shop  is  distinctly 
and  without  question  a  closed  shop,  either  for  or  against  labor 
unions,  that  fact  should  be  well  known  to  the  applicant,  and 
if  it  is  a  closed  shop,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  every 
applicant  should  show  his  union  card  before  he  is  admitted  to 
the  interviewing  room.  If  the  shop  does  not  hire  members 
of  unions  the  fact  should  be  plainly  stated  in  a  sign  over  the 
entrance.  Since  the  great  majority  of  shops  are  ostensibly 
"open  shops,"  that  is  they  hire  men  and  not  memberships, 
they  can  hardly  look  into  membership  without  exciting  the 
suspicion  that  they  have  an  ulterior  motive.  Of  course  every 
open  shop  is  an  object  of  suspicion  to  the  unions,  whether 
justly  or  not,  and  an  inquiry  only  excites  further  suspicion  and 
without  giving  a  very  clear  idea  of  the  actual  conditions. 

It  might  also  be  said  that  purely  from  an  employment 
standpoint  it  is  no  part  of  the  company's  business  to  inquire 
how  many  children  an  applicant  has,  for  so  far  there  has  been 
no  sliding  scale  of  wages  based  upon  the  number  of  his  depend- 
ents. Whether  there  should  be  is  another  question  and  one 
that  seems  to  be  a  community  rather  than  a  company  matter. 
There  is  no  special  reason  why  a  man  with  six  children  should 
produce  more  than  a  man  with  three.  In  fact,  he  may  be  so 
harassed  with  their  sleeplessness  at  night  and  the  cost  of 
feeding  and  clothing  them  that  he  will  be  very  much  less 
valuable  than  if  he  were  single.  The  reason  an  inquiry  is 
almost  always  made  into  the  size  of  a  man's  family  is  because 
of  the  theory  that  the  larger  his  family  the  longer  and  closer 
he  will  stick  to  the  job.  This  is  once  more  an  expression  of 
intention  to  take  advantage  of  the  under  dog's  necessities.  To 
be  sure  men  with  large  families  do  stay  longer  on  the  job 
than  single  men,  but  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
it  is  wise  to  have  men  in  the  shop  who  would  work  elsewhere 
if  they  dared  to  make  the  break.  Intimidation  never  made 
profits  for  any  shop,  and  the  fear  of  discharge  which  is  held 
over  men  as  a  whip  cuts  especially  heavily  on  the  married  men. 


—  31  — 

Inquiry  into  ownership  of  property  is  a  similar  matter. 
The  fact  that  a  man  owns  a  home  is  looked  upon  by  many 
employers  as  just  one  more  indication  that  there  is  a  man 
who  can  be  exploited  before  he  will  leave  the  shop.  If,  how- 
ever, the  interest  of  the  concern  was  in  the  number  of  Ameri- 
can-born children  who  will  be  coming  along  later  as  prospec- 
tive workmen,  or  if  their  interest  in  his  home  was  in  having 
workmen  near  the  shop,  then  these  inquiries  would  be  justified, 
otherwise  they  become  of  interest  only  as  statistics  and  are 
hardly  worth  the  suspicion  which  they  arouse  in  the  men. 
They  are  however  the  most  common  questions  asked,  even 
though  there  seems  to  be  little  or  no  use  made  of  the  answers, 
unless  it  be  the  rather  questionable  uses  just  suggested. 

The  interviewer  himself  soon  becomes  a  part  of  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  department  and  to  avoid  having  him  perform 
his  duties  in  a  purely  mechanical  way  it  is  necessary  that  he 
be  a  man  with  a  real  interest  in  the  work  he  is  doing.  This 
makes  it  necessary  that  he  be  thoroughly  posted  on  all  of  the 
company's  affairs  for  he  cannot  do  his  best  work  if  he  is  blind- 
folded. Too  many  managers  believe  that  the  affairs  of  the 
company  should  be  kept  from  their  assistants,  and  yet  they 
complain  that  their  assistants  do  not  take  the  interest  in 
their  work  that  they  should.  How  can  a  man  take  an  interest 
in  the  selection  of  employees  unless  he  knows  whether  they 
are  going  to  be  needed  permanently,  or  whether  the  demand 
is  made  because  of  a  temporary  spurt  in  business?  If  he 
is  just  another  "hired  man"  there  is  little  incentive  for  him 
to  do  other  than  put  in  his  time  and  be  around  convenient 
to  the  paymaster  once  a  week.  He  is  a  part  of  the  concern, 
or  else  he  is  merely  a  dummy.  He  should  know  of  the  big 
orders  as  soon  as  they  are  received,  if  not  as  soon  as  they  are 
expected.  He  should  know  of  the  falling  off  of  inquiries  so 
that  he  may  not  overhire,  even  though  foremen  may  requisi- 
tion men.  He  should  know  of  changes  in  pay  and  the  reason 
for  it.  In  fact,  he  should  know  all  the  company's  business  as 
quickly  as  it  is  proper  for  it  to  be  known  outside  the  general 
manager's  office.  In  almost  all  shops,  however,  he  is  depend- 
ent on  the  "shop  wireless"  which  works  faster  on  good  news 
than  bad  and  which  is  not  always  entirely  reliable. 


—  32  — 

The  interviewer  should  be  a  man  old  enough  to  command 
the  respect  of  every  applicant,  but  he  should  not  be  so  old 
that  he  is  unappreciative  of  new  ideas.  He  should  be  alert 
and  constantly  on  the  watch  to  find  better  ways  of  carrying 
on  the  work  of  the  office.  He  ought  to  know  enough  about 
every  job  in  the  shop  so  that  he  does  not  have  to  depend  on 
any  job  analysis,  or  rather  he  should  have  the  job  analysis 
of  every  part  of  the  work  so  clearly  fixed  in  his  mind  that,  if 
necessary,  he  could  dictate  an  analysis  to  a  stenographer. 
There  are  some  men  who  can  do  this  without  having  worked 
in  the  shop,  but  there  are  very  few  whose  powers  of  observa- 
tion are  equal  to  such  a  task,  unless  they  have  at  some  time 
done  similar  work  as  a  means  of  livelihood. 

There  is  a  vast  difference  between  doing  work  for  the  sake 
of  the  money  which  comes  from  it  and  doing  it  for  the  sake 
of  knowing  how  it  is  done.  It  has  been  observed  that  very 
few  serious  labor  troubles  occurred  during  the  generation  of 
employers  who  came  up  through  the  ranks  and  formerly 
worked  with  their  men.  Whether  this  is  literally  true  or  not, 
the  idea  is  fundamentally  good.  If  the  employment  depart- 
ment is  to  represent  the  management  to  the  men  it  will  profit 
much  by  having  this  actual  working  contact  in  its  past  history. 

A  very  young  man,  no  matter  how  bright  and  capable,  is 
not  suited  to  this  work  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  cannot 
look  the  part.  It  is  in  many  ways  a  judicial  part,  and  is  so 
considered  by  the  employees.  They  resent  being  told  things 
by  a  young  chap  which  they  would  take  perfectly  well  from 
an  older  man.  It  is  not  the  fault  of  the  young  men  that 
they  are  not  suited  to  this  work,  but  rather  their  misfortune. 
This,  however,  only  applies  to  the  men  who  actually  decide. 
The  clerical  work  can  be  done  by  young  fellows  or  by  girls. 
Such  work  is  excellent  training  for  young  men  who  will 
some  day  be.  employment  managers,  and  such  jobs  ought  not, 
therefore,  to  be  filled  entirely  by  women. 

Employment  of  women  as  interviewers  or  even  as  employ- 
ment managers  is  by  no  means  unheard  of,  and  women  have 
made  some  very  good  records,  especially  in  places  where  a 
considerable  number  of  girls  were  employed.  They  are,  how- 
ever, under  a  severe  handicap  owing  to  the  natural  reluctance 


—  33  — 

of  a  man  to  ask  of  them  what  may  seem  like  a  favor,  and  also 
of  the  preference  which  women  have  for  dealing  with  men. 

Under  stress  of  necessity,  both  sexes  will  apply  for  jobs 
where  they  have  to  state  their  case  to  a  woman,  but  it  is  not 
by  choice,  and  the  shop  which  employs  them  for  such  work 
does  not  get  the  best  labor  which  is  available.  There  is  no 
doubt  but  that  women  are  quite  as  capable  as  men  of  making 
good  selections  from  among  those  who  apply,  but  their  handi- 
cap is  in  the  applicants  themselves.  It  is  such  an  important 
matter  in  many  places  to  get  the  highest  quality  of  labor 
which  can  be  found  that  this  phase  of  the  matter  should  be 
fully  considered  before  hiring  is  put  in  the  hands  of  women. 
To  be  sure  women  have  done  many  things  successfully  which 
may  seem  to  parallel  employment  work,  but  if  such  work  be 
analyzed  it  will  be  found  that  it  involved  positions  in  which 
women  could  "play  up"  their  sex  and  arouse  feelings  from 
which  business  is  supposedly  free.  Women  in  employment 
work  cannot  gain  anything  from  the  sex  appeal. 

There  is  a  great  difference  in  interviewers  as  to  their 
methods  of  meeting  men.  One  will  be  all  smiles  and  very 
affable  and  he  is  apt  to  be  rated  as  a  sissy  among  applicants. 
Another  will  be  gruff  and  growl  at  every  one,  on  the  ground 
that  unless  they  are  impressed  with  his  importance  they  will 
not  start  to  work  in  the  right  spirit  of  obedience.  He  is 
shunned  by  the  better  class  of  men,  unless  they  are  very  badly 
in  need  of  work.  Another  will  ask  very  few  questions  but  will 
size  a  man  up  almost  entirely  on  his  appearance,  possibly  by 
a  system  of  his  own,  or  by  some  one  of  the  physiological  tests 
that  have  been  made  much  of  in  the  past  few  years.  He  is 
unsatisfactory  to  the  applicant  as  the  latter  usually  wants  to 
tell  his  story  to  some  one  who  will  sympathize  with  him. 

The  most  successful  interviewers  are  good  listeners.  It  is 
not  altogether  pleasant  to  sit  and  hear  a  man  ramble  through 
his  past  experiences,  but  if  he  has  a  weakness  it  will  come  out 
for  no  system  of  questioning  will  bring  out  so  much  as  a 
sympathetic  and  apparently  willing  listener.  Of  course  there 
are  men  who  prove  exceptions  to  this  rule,  but  they  are  few 
in  number,  and  almost  all  of  them  are  bashful  rather  than 
reticent. 


HAVING  once  brought  the  requisition  for  help  and  the 
man  to  fill  the  requisition  together,  there  still  remains 
the  task  of  actually  accepting  him  and  taking  his  record.  An 
occasional  employment  manager  will  say  that  as  long  as  he  is 
employment  manager  he  is  going  to  hire  the  help  without  in- 
terference from  any  one  else.  This  is  a  mistake,  for  no  matter 
how  capable  he  may  be  there  is  the  psychological  condition  to 
be  met  which  comes  about  because  the  man  will  work  under 
a  foreman,  and  until  the  man  is  satisfied  with  the  foreman 
and  the  foreman  with  him  the  contract  is  of  no  value.  The 
employment  department  is  really  the  agent  of  the  foreman  in 
securing  help.  It  may  not  appear  that  way  on  the  organiza- 
tion chart  but  that  is  the  effect  which  it  has.  If,  as  agent  of 
the  foreman,  the  employment  department  hires  men  and  sends 
them  to  work  there  will  be  much  more  danger  of  a  critical 
attitude  than  as  if  the  foreman  and  workmen  had  met.  To  be 
sure,  there  will  come  a  time  when  the  foreman  will  say  to 
the  employment  department,  "Send  along  your  men  and  don't 
bother  me;  you  can  pick  them  as  good  as  I  can,"  and  when 
that  time  comes  the  employment  department  has  come  a  long 
ways  toward  functioning  as  it  should.  It  will  not  profit  it, 
however,  to  force  the  issue. 

How  is  the  man  to  meet  the  foreman?  Sometimes  a  num- 
ber of  men  can  be  held  in  the  waiting  room  and  the  foreman 
can  come  in  but  it  is  usually  better  for  the  man  to  see  the 
foreman  on  the  job.  It  is  expensive  to  furnish  guides,  but  it 
is  the  only  safe  way.  It  is  not  always  done,  however,  and 
even  during  the  war  it  was  not  an  uncommon  sight  to  see 
men  wandering  around  in  munition  plants  and  shipyards  try- 

34 


—  35  — 

ing  to  find  a  certain  foreman  with  the  very  uncertain  directions 
given  them  at  the  employment  office.  The  opportunities  for 
harm  thus  afforded  were  unlimited.  Even  in  peace  times 
there  are  very  few  shops  so  arranged  that  a  man  can  be  safely 
directed  to  a  given  foreman.  It  is  much  better  to  hire  a  boy 
to  do  this  work,  but  it  is  not  a  good  job  for  the  boy  unless  he 
is  of  the  kind  that  learns  readily  by  observation  as  he  is  very 
apt  to  loaf  two-thirds  of  the  time. 

If  the  man  is  accepted  by  the  foreman  he  should  endorse 
his  approval  on  the  original  requisition  sheet.  This  is  for  the 
protection  of  the  employment  department,  and  it  adds  one 
more  reason  for  a  separate  requisition  for  each  man.  In  fact, 
the  general  requisition  written  for  ten,  twenty,  or  a  hundred 
men  does  not  lend  itself  to  the  easy  working  out  of  a  system 
of  keeping  track  of  labor.  Each  man  is  a  unit  by  himself;  he 
is  not  like  any  other  man  even  though  he  goes  by  the  same 
title  and  draws  the  same  pay.  He  must  be  given  a  separate 
number  and  a  separate  place  on  the  payroll  and  the  best  place 
to  begin  to  make  him  a  separate  unit  is  on  the  requisition 
before  he  is  hired. 

Whether  a  man  should  be  introduced  to  the  time  keeper, 
and  have  the  location  of  the  time  clock,  the  locker  room,  and 
the  wash  rooms  pointed  out  at  the  time  he  meets  the  fore- 
man is  a  question  to  be  decided  chiefly  by  the  probability 
of  the  man's  actually  coming  to  work.  Where  shops  of  a 
similar  nature  are  closely  crowded .  together  it  is  customary 
for  a  man  to  take  a  half  a  day  off  and  "go  shopping  around" 
for  a  job,  promising  at  each  shop  to  go  to  work  the  following 
week.  Thus,  if  there  are  four  shops,  there  is  one  chance  in 
four  that  he  will  accept  a  particular  job,  and  under  such  con- 
ditions it  probably  is  better  to  spend  as  little  time  on  him 
as  possible.  In  such  a  case,  however,  it  is  sometimes  an  ad- 
vantage to  insist  on  his  coming  prepared  to  go  to  work,  and 
if  this  is  expected  the  word  will  soon  spread  that  only  such 
men  need  apply  as  are  willing  to  take  the  job.  This  has 
another  good  effect  in  that  it  decreases  the  number  of  men  who 
go  back  to  their  present  employer  and  secure  an  unearned 
raise  in  pay  on  the  ground  that  they  are  going  to  leave  to  take 
a  job  with  some  rival. 


—  36  — 

Somewhere  during  this  period  a  medical  examination 
should  be  given.  If  such  an  examination  is  used  to  eliminate 
undesirables  it  should  come  after  the  preliminary  interview, 
but  if  it  is  intended  to  help  the  employment  department  place 
the  desirable  men  where,  from  a  physical  standpoint,  they  will 
be  best  fitted,  then  it  should  not  come  until  after  the  final 
interview,  for  at  that  time  the  medical  department  can  have 
all  the  information  as  to  the  man's  expected  place  in  the 
organization.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  medical  examination 
is  merely  one  to  seek  out  men  with  contagious  diseases  and 
disqualifying  disabilities,  as  seems  to  be  the  case  in  some 
shops,  it  does  not  make  any  difference  where  it  comes  as  it  is 
about  equally  out  of  place  everywhere. 

The  physical  examination  room  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  a 
part  of  the  employment  department,  but  is  rather  a  branch 
of  the  medical  department  which  is  preferably  contiguous  to 
the  interviewer's  rooms.  Nearness  is  of  great  importance,  and 
delays  occasioned  by  waiting  for  the  doctor  are  very  bad, 
for  when  a  man  is  waiting  he  imagines  himself  suffering  from 
all  kinds  of  diseases.  To  be  sure,  a  large  proportion  of  our 
population  is  accustomed  to  physical  examinations  and  knows 
what  its  physical  condition  is,  but  there  are  large  numbers  of 
others  who  ought  to  know  their  condition  who  do  not,  and 
who  are  apt  to  grow  nervous  through  delay.  We  may,  there- 
fore, say  that  it  is  essential  that  the  medical  department  have 
its  facilities  for  examination  near  at  hand  and  ready  for  instant 
service.  Figure  2  shows  how  this  is  accomplished  at  the  Lynn 
Works  of  the  General  Electric  Company.  There  should  also 
be  every  attention  paid  to  reducing  the  length  of  time  between 
the  applicant's  coming  into  the  outer  waiting  room  and  his 
getting  the  job,  or  knowing  that  he  does  not  get  one,  because 
from  his  point  of  view  all  that  time  is  lost.  He  much  prefers 
the  old  way  of  hailing  the  foreman  through  the  shop  windows 
and  being  hired  right  then  and  there,  and  the  nearer  we  can 
approach  that  as  an  ideal  the  better. 

Some  mention  should  also  be  made  of  the  plan  of  having 
physical  examinations  made  only  after  the  workman  has  been 
on  the  job  a  week  or  two.  It  has  the  merit  of  financial  econ- 
omy, if  that  is  a  merit,  but  it  does  not  help  the  employment 


—  37  — 


ptj 


—  38  — 

department  in  its  selection,  and  it  does  not  prevent  men  with 
contagious  diseases  from  getting  into  the  shop.  It  is  quite 
like  locking  the  barn  door  after  the  horse  is  stolen.  There 
are  many  so-called  "practical"  employment  managers  who 
claim  to  be  able  to  tell  by  looking  at  a  man  whether  or  not  he 
is  physically  able  to  do  any  given  job.  They  point  to  individ- 
ual failures  of  doctors  to  notice  certain  ailments  which  develop 
after  the  men  are  safely  in  the  shop,  and  yet  this  type  of 
manager  almost  always  has  faith  enough  in  doctors  to  call 
one  in  if  sickness,  or  even  the  appearance  of  sickness,  visits 
his  home.  There  is  no  doubt  but  that  in  many  cases  the 
doctor  would,  if  he  were  hiring  men  for  himself,  take  a  chance 
on  the  man's  appearance  and  hire  him  without  any  examina- 
tion, but  knowing  as  he  does  that  there  will  inevitably  be 
knockers  in  the  shop  he  cannot  take  the  same  chances  in 
another  man's  shop. 

Every  effort  should  be  made  to  make  the  physical  examina- 
tion as  easy  for  the  men  as  possible.  Men  of  draft  age  are 
accustomed  to  examinations,  but  that  does  not  necessarily 
mean  that  they  are  fond  of  them.  If,  as  is  common  practice, 
there  are  individual  dressing  booths,  each  man  should  see 
where  he  is  going  next  before  he  is  asked  to  prepare  for 
examination.  Asking  a  man  to  step  into  an  ill-lighted  booth, 
and  leave  his  clothes  behind  with  whatever  valuables  he  may 
have  with  him,  and  then  to  step  out  into  a  room  of  which 
he  knows  nothing  will  certainly  make  him  suspicious.  A  plan, 
which  seems  very  successful,  is  to  have  the  door  by  which  the 
man  enters  lock  from  the  inside  and  to  let  him  lock  it;  also 
to  have  the  door  which  leads  into  the  examination  room  lock 
on  the  outside  so  that  he  cannot  step  out  into  that  room 
until  the  doctor  is  ready  for  him.  In  this  way  there  is  ensured 
the  same  privacy  as  is  found  in  any  physician's  office.  A 
very  satisfactory  method  of  installing  these  booths  is  shown 
in  Figure  2  on  the  previous  page. 

There  should  also  be  some  scheme  built  into  the  layout  of 
the  examining  room  and  the  employment  office  so  that  there 
can  be  quick  access  from  the  interviewer  to  the  medical  ex- 
aminer. No  written  records  can  possibly  be  the  equivalent 
of  a  face  to  face  conference.  The  examiner  and  the  inter- 


—  39  — 

viewer  necessarily  are  thinking  of  the  man  in  different  terms, 
one  might  almost  say  in  different  languages.  In  order,  there- 
fore, that  the  medical  description  be  translated  so  as  to  have 
an  effect  on  shop  work  there  must  be  constant  consultation, 
or  else  there  will  be  a  lack  of  cooperation.  Constant  associa- 
tion between  doctor  and  interviewers  will  also  bring  about 
a  proper  respect  for  each  other's  abilities. 

Many  shops  use  passes  which  have  on  them  a  photograph 
of  the  man  to  whom  they  were  issued.  The  time  and  place 
to  take  such  a  photograph  is  before  a  man  leaves  the  employ- 
ment department  and  as  soon  as  his  shop  number  can  be  as- 
signed to  him.  That  is,  the  man  and  his  shop  number  should 
be  photographed  at  the  same  time,  otherwise  it  is  very  difficult 
to  pick  out  the  man's  photograph.  Any  one  who  questions 
the  wisdom  of  photographs  on  passes  can  confirm  his  judg- 
ment any  time  by  taking  a  few  passes  to  the  different  foremen 
and  watchmen  and  ask  them  to  name  the  men  from  their 
photographs.  The  effect  of  the  portrait  is  largely  psycholog- 
ical however  and  in  this  respect  it  is  similar  to  the  pass  itself, 
for  if  a  watchman  becomes  suspicious  he  cannot  see  any  re- 
semblance between  photograph  and  owner,  and  if  he  is  not 
suspicious  he  will  not  look  at  either. 

Remote  from  such  parts  of  the  employment  office  there 
should  be  a  place,  usually  with  a  small  waiting  room,  for  all 
kinds  of  interviews  with  men  after  they  have  begun  work. 
This  should  be  the  place  where  men  come  with  all  their  trou- 
bles and  where  men  are  sent  by  the  foreman  whenever  disputes 
occur.  In  other  words,  it  should  not  be  possible  for  the  rest 
of  the  employees  to  guess  why  a  fellow  worker  has  visited 
that  room.  This  room  should  be  used  for  men  who  want 
increases  in  pay,  for  men  whose  foremen  think  they  should 
be  dropped,  for  inquiries  about  income  taxes,  and  for  every 
purpose  when  men  want  an  interview  with  some  one  repre- 
'senting  the  management.  For  that  reason,  whenever  the 
plant  is  too  large  for  all  who  seek  such  interviews  to  be  seen  by 
one  man,  the  work  should  not  be  subdivided,  but  should  be 
divided  among  the  representatives  of  the  management. 

If  there  is  a  central  file  department  for  all  employee  rela- 
tions activities,  it  should  be  located  so  as  to  be  easy  of  access 


—  40  — 

both  by  telephone  and  by  messenger,  so  that  whoever  needs 
information  may  get  it  at  once.  These  files  for  rapid  use 
should  all  be  "top  drawer  files,"  or,  better  yet  because  cheaper, 
they  should  be  open  trays  set  on  top  of  the  files  of  the  "dead 
cases."  Just  how  long  the  "dead"  files  should  be  kept  is  an 
open  question  which  is  apt  to  be  settled  by  the  room  that  is 
available,  but,  generally  speaking,  it  is  very  possible  that  men 
will  show  up  after  an  absence  of  ten  years  or  even  more  and 
very  often  after  five  years,  so  that  no  short  term  file  will  give 
all  the  information  that  is  likely  to  be  wanted. 

This  file  room  should  not  only  give  a  complete  history  of 
the  individual's  connection  with  the  company  but  it  should 
also  have  an  alphabetical  index  of  those  in  the  entire  shop, 
so  that  telephone  calls  can  be  answered  promptly.  This  can 
best  be  kept  on  a  visible  index  so  as  to  be  easily  and  quickly 
consulted,  but  it  is  not  and  cannot  be  a  substitute  for  the 
complete  folder  with  all  information  about  the  man.  It  may, 
however,  give  a  few  of  the  outstanding  facts  which  are  con- 
stantly used.  For  example,  it  may  give  the  man's  nationality 
by  birthplace,  so  that  a  complete  census  of  the  shop  can  be 
taken  by  running  over  the  cards,  and  it  should,  of  course,  give 
the  department  in  which  he  is  working.  A  few  such  facts  can 
be  readily  tabulated  in  this  way,  but  an  attempt  to  put  a 
man's  entire  history  on  a  card  prevents  all  possibility  of  getting 
enough  on  to  permit  of  a  real  study  of  employment  cor.  Jitions 
as  they  exist  in  the  shop. 

In  addition  to  all  these  matters  there  is  a  great  need  of 
proximity  to  the  safety  engineering  department,  to  the  pay- 
master, to  the  time  keepers,  and  to  the  hospital,  because  all 
of  these  departments  should  work  together.  Furthermore,  the 
location  of  the  employment  department  should  be  easy  of 
access  to  outsiders  and  this  usually  means  near  the  office. 
If  the  hiring  of  the  office  force  is  also  part  of  the  functions 
of  the  employment  department,  then  its  location  should  be 
such  that  office  applicants  can  reach  the  employment  depart- 
ment without  going  in  by  the  same  door  which  admits  laborers 
and  others.  Its  location,  however,  should  also  be  selected  with 
an  eye  to  ease  of  access  to  the  men  after  they  are  working  in 
the  shop. 


CHAPTER  VI 
EMPLOYMENT  FORMS 

NINE  out  of  every  ten  people  who  venture  into  employ- 
ment management,  either  as  employers  or  in  the  depart- 
ment itself,  ask  first  of  all  for  the  available  forms  used  by 
others  of  the  profession.  Forms  are  really  the  smallest  part  of 
the  work.  There  can  be  a  profitable  employment  department 
without  any,  and  there  can  be  unprofitable  departments  with 
the  finest  forms  that  can  be  devised.  In  other  words,  employ- 
ment is  a  matter  of  judgment,  intuition,  and  psychology, 
rather  than  a  matter  of  rules. 

In  general  there  are  three  reasons  for  having  forms.  The 
first,  that  a  record  of  the  history  of  each  employee  may  be 
available  whenever  the  time  comes  for  him  to  be  promoted, 
transferred,  or  when  he  leaves  the  company;  the  second,  that 
figures  be  available  for  statistical  purposes  in  which  the  work- 
ing force  is  treated  of  as  a  body  and  analyzed  as  to  its  married 
state,  its  housing,  age,  education,  etc. ;  the  third,  that  informa- 
tion be  kept  as  a  check  on  the  employment  department  itself, 
to  determine,  for  instance,  whether  or  not  its  judgment  was 
correct  as  to  certain  characteristics  of  the  applicants.  Under 
each  of  these  heads  there  are  of  course  many  items  concerning 
which  the  employment  department  should  have  complete 
and  detailed  information. 

The  proper  classification  of  these  items  is  given  in  Table  1 
and  it  will  be  noted  that  the  items  refer  only  to  applicants. 
Later  it  is  probably  worth  while  to  follow  up  and  keep  a 
record  of  each  man  which  will  indicate  how  well  the  person 
who  selected  him  did  his  work,  and  how  keenly  alive  he  was 
to  the  possibilities  of  making  suitable  placements.  If  an  in- 
terviewer selects  a  man  of  great  activity  and  initiative  for  a 

41 


—  42  — 


job  as  a  watchman  he  is  as  much  in  error  as  if  he  had  selected 
a  man  of  the  sluggish  type  and  no  initiative  to  be  an  assistant 
in  the  engineering  department.  The  records  of  the  opinions 
which  the  interviewer  formed  are  very  valuable  to  him  as 
time  goes  on  and  he  discovers  his  own  tendencies  to  overrate 
or  underrate  his  impressions  in  different  directions.  This  is 
especially  true  in  hiring  girls  for  both  shop  and  office. 

TABLE  1,  CLASSIFICATION  OF  DATA  REFERRING  TO  APPLICANTS 


Historical 

Statistical 

Check 

Name 

Name 

Name 

Address 

Address 

Address 

Shop  number  and  depart- 

Home address 

Date  of  birth 

ment 

Date  of  birth 

Industrial   history    (com- 

Date of  birth 

Industrial  history    (three 

plete) 

Industrial   history    (three 

or  more  jobs) 

Date    of    completion    of 

or  more  jobs) 

Educational  history 

school 

Extent  of  education 

Birthplace 

Desire  to  improve  self 

Nationality 

of  father 

Stability 

Citizenship 

of  mother 

Sobriety 

Married 

Citizenship 

Personal  appearance 

References 

First  papers 

Courtesy 

Second  papers 

Recreations 

Final  papers 

Hobbies 

Married 

Avocations 

Single 

Reading 

Divorced 

Willingness  to  work 

Widower 

Knowledge  of  work 

Children 

Activity 

Number 

Initiative 

Age 

Loyalty 

Sex 

Working 

Other  dependents 

Memberships 

Company  organizations 

Unions 

Societies 

Political  party 

Church 

Army 

The  first  column  of  Table  1  consists  almost  entirely  of  data 
which  is  likely  to  be  called  for  at  any  time  by  the  manage- 
ment of  the  concern  or  by  governmental  agencies.  It  is  prac- 
tically an  essential  minimum  of  information  regarding  the 
members  of  the  force.  Some  firms  do  not  keep  any  record 
of  a  man's  industrial  history,  but  nearly  all  do  for  the  sake  of 


—  43  — 

having  a  record  to  use  when  transfers  take  place.  A  few  firms 
do  not  take  any  record  of  educational  history,  but  in  these  days 
when  Americanization  is  so  important  it  seems  desirable  to 
know  how  much  or  how  little  schooling  each  man  has  had. 
Merely  to  assume  that  all  foreigners  are  uneducated  works 
great  injustice  to  many  well-educated  men  who  are  not  yet 
familiar  with  the  English  language.  In  the  case  of  higher 
positions  it  is  necessary  to  have  this  data. 

The  question  of  the  size  and  arrangement  of  the  form  to 
be  used  by  the  interviewer  is  one  that  is  usually  left  to  the 
employment  manager.  Some  find  a  card,  five  by  eight  inches, 
most  satisfactory,  but  in  general  it  is  better  to  use  a  sheet  of 
paper  not  less  than  eight  and  one-half  by  eleven  inches.  The 
information  to  be  put  on  this  first  interview  card  or  sheet 
may  cover  as  little  as  is  covered  by  the  first  column  of  Table 
1,  or  it  may  include  all  the  items.  There  is  an  advantage  in 
having  all  the  information  which  may  be  required  for  statis- 
tical work  on  one  side  of  the  sheet,  but  the  items  marked 
"Check"  may  appear  on  the  other  without  making  the  work 
cumbersome.  It  is  also  easier  to  read  these  cards,  or  any 
other  similar  records,  if  the  items  are  arranged  in  columns 
rather  than  in  solid  text.  It  is  probably  better  not  to  have 
any  medical  data  appear  on  this  card,  not  even  height  and 
weight  though  those  may  help  to  identify  the  man.  A  photo- 
graph, however,  costs  very  little  and  is  much  better  as  a  means 
of  identification.  So  much  for  the  interviewer's  card,  which 
is  the  one  chiefly  used  and  which  carries  the  most  information. 

The  next  most  important  form  is  the  one  which  the  fore- 
man uses  in  requisitioning  help.  Its  exact  form  is  of  very 
little  consequence  but  usually  the  policy  of  the  office  will 
determine  whether  a  separate  card  or  slip  shall  be  made 
out  for  every  man,  or  whether  there  shall  be  a  blanket  order 
calling  for  a  given  number  of  men  of  one  grade.  In  any  case, 
however,  it  is  highly  important  that  the  requisition  show  with 
the  greatest  possible  clearness  exactly  what  the  foreman  wants. 
This  can  often  be  accomplished,  depending  of  course  on  the 
industry,  by  printing  on  the  request  a  list  of  the  jobs  for 
which  men  might  be  needed,  and  then  all  the  foreman  need 
do  is  check  the  list.  The  average  foreman's  hand  writing  is 


—  44  — 

generally  poor,  and  this  system  may  help  the  employment 
department  a  great  deal.  Furthermore,  .this  requisition,  if 
one  is  used  for  each  applicant,  may  become  a  receipt  for  the 
man  hired;  that  is  the  requisition  may  be  sent  to  the  fore- 
man along  with  the  applicant  when  he  leaves  the  employment 
office,  and  if  the  foreman  accepts  him  he  then  signs  a  printed 
statement  to  that  effect  on  the  back  of  the  requisition  and 
returns  it  to  the  employment  department.  In  this  way  the 
form  becomes  a  complete  statement  that  the  foreman  needed 
a  man  and  that  he  received  one  that  was  acceptable  to  him. 

There  should  also  be  a  form  for  requesting  increases  in 
pay.  This  is  substantially  a  request  to  the  cashier  to  change 
the  rate  of  pay  from  one  rate  to  another.  The  form  should 
vary  according  to  the  plan  adopted  for  putting  through  in- 
creases. If  requests  may  start  from  a  number  of  different 
sources  there  should  be  a  place  on  the  card  for  each  of  the 
different  officials  to  sign.  It  is  often  the  plan  to  place  the 
initial  step  in  the  hands  of  any  one  of  several  men  and  in 
such  cases  the  proposed  raise  does  not  become  effective  until 
signed  by  a  certain  number  of  them.  Most  of  these  men,  how- 
ever, sign  in  a  very  perfunctory  way  and  there  is,  therefore,  an 
advantage  when  making  up  these  forms  in  providing  for  as 
few  signatures  as  possible. 

A  transfer  is  frequently  considered,  as  far  as  forms  are 
concerned,  as  if  the  man  left  one  department  and  were  hired 
in  another.  In  some  cases  a  transfer  card  is  made  out  noting 
that  so-and-so  has  been  transferred  from  one  department  to 
another  and  a  place  provided  for  both  foremen  to  sign,  indi- 
cating that  they  approve.  This  is  not,  however,  a  good  system 
because  it  gives  the  foreman  who  is  losing  the  man  a  chance 
to  block  the  transfer  even  though  it  be  temporarily. 

During  the  time  the  man  is  in  the  shop  he  will  have  numer- 
ous articles  in  his  possession  which  belong  to  the  company. 
These  may  range  from  locker  keys  to  perhaps  a  trombone  or 
a  base  drum  and  in  some  places  it  is  customary  to  take  a 
receipt  for  all  these  articles  and  file  it  with  the  man's  other 
records.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  it  has  little  or  no  bearing  on 
the  man's  standing,  but  is  simply  a  memorandum  to  be  used 
in  making  a  settlement  when  he  leaves,  it  would  seem  as  if 


—  45  — 

it  should  be  filed  with  the  department  which  makes  that  final 
settlement,  usually  the  paymaster  or  the  cashier.  No  special 
form  is  needed  for  these  receipts,  though  sometimes  one  is 
made  up  which  contains  the  names  of  the  different  articles 
most  often  entrusted  to  the  men. 

When  a  man  is  absent  or  leaves  the  company  there  should 
be  a  form  used  for  investigating  such  acts.  Usually  the  first 
man  who  knows  that  a  workman  has  left  is  his  foreman  or 
straw  boss,  or  perhaps  the  time-keeper.  It  depends,  of  course, 
upon  how  the  organization  handles  the  work.  In  any  case, 
whoever  is  responsible  should  notify  the  employment  depart- 
ment. How  soon  such  information  should  be  sent  to  the 
employment  department  is  a  question  whose  answer  depends 
upon  the  system  employed.  It  varies  in  different  shops,  and 
also  somewhat  according  to  the  case  from  a  single  day  to  a 
week.  In  times  of  great  pressure  men  whose  work  is  essen- 
tial to  the  progress  of  production  may  even  be  "looked  up" 
the  same  day  they  are  reported  out.  A  form  for  this  may 
be  a  simple  notice  to  the  employment  department  that  John 
Smith,  Number  30  of  Department  K,  is  out,  cause  unknown,  or 
if  known,  why,  and  should  be  investigated. 

On  this  form  there  is  usually  a  line  on  which  the  foreman 
may  indicate,  if  he  does  not  think  the  man  suited  to  his  work, 
the  kind  of  work  which  he  believes  the  man  can  do.  Such 
information  is  usually  of  no  value  however  for  there  are 
few  foremen  who  will  recommend  a  man  for  whom  they  have 
a  dislike.  This  same  notification  to  the  employment  depart- 
ment may  also  be  used  to  report  the  investigation  of  the  case. 
If  the  request  of  the  foreman  for  the  investigation  and  the 
results  are  on  a  single  form  there  is  thus  brought  together  the 
complete  history  of  the  man's  departure,  and  for  future  ref- 
erence such  information  may  be  of  value  for  it  may  happen 
that  the  man  will  want  to  come  back.  Inasmuch  as  the  in- 
vestigation is  made  in  the  employment  department  or  by 
them  there  only  needs  to  be  enough  blank  space  allowed  for 
an  explanation  of,  say,  about  fifty  words. 

In  all  the  cases  just  mentioned  the  number  of  duplicate 
copies  to  be  made  depends  on  how  many  people  have  need 
of  the  information,  and  whether  they  want  it  merely  for  their 


—  46  — 

information  or  for  their  approval.  As  a  general  rule  there  is 
more  paper  laying  around  in  different  offices  than  there  should 
be,  and  unless  there  is  real  use  for  duplicates  it  is  better  not  to 
make  them  but  to  refer  the  person  who  occasionally  wants  the 
information  to  the  file  room  where  the  original  is  kept. 

If  a  folder  is  used  in  the  file  room,  a  form  may  be  placed 
on  the  outside  giving  the  most  essential  points  of  the  man's 
connection  with  the  firm.  There  should  be,  of  course,  the 
man's  name  and  shop  number,  and  if  the  number  does  not 
carry  with  it  the  department  that  should  also  be  stated.  The 
date  of  his  entry  into  the  employ  of  the  concern  should  like- 
wise be  given  and  in  addition  the  dates  of  any  previous  en- 
tries and  exits.  Whether  the  rates  of  wages  at  different  times 
should  appear  in  so  prominent  a  place  depends  on  how  much 
the  company  believes  in  an  open  and  above  board  method  of 
doing  business.  It  is,  of  course,  easy  to  say  that  the  rate  of 
pay  a  man  is  getting  is  determined  by  agreement  as  an  indi- 
vidual and  therefore  should  be  kept  secret  and  confidential 
by  the  employer.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  very  seldom  that 
this  is  so,  for  usually  it  is  well  known  around  the  shop  what 
rate  is  being  offered  for  different  jobs,  and  if  a  man  suspects 
that  he  is  not  being  paid  as  much  for  his  work  as  the  firm  is 
offering  green  hands  he  can  very  easily  find  out  from  the  men 
who  have  gone  in  and  applied  for  a  job,  or  he  can  send  one  of 
his  friends  around  to  apply  and  find  out  for  him.  Then,  too, 
if  there  is  anything  confidential  about  it,  it  is  all  on  the  side 
of  the  employer.  Every  man  who  gets  a  raise  has  to  tell  some 
one,  and  once  told  it  is  known  to  everybody.  Whether  this 
information  goes  on  the  outside  of  the  folder  or  on  the  inside 
is,  however,  a  matter  of  small  import,  but  it  should  be  so  placed 
on  record  that  the  employment  department  with  little  effort 
may  report  from  time  to  time  that  certain  men  should  be 
investigated  with  a  view  to  increasing  their  pay. 

Finally,  there  are  so  many  men  who  prefer  to  "quit"  and 
look  up  another  job  rather  than  to  go  to  their  foremen  and 
ask  for  an  increase,  that  it  is  worth  while  for  the  employment 
department  to  keep  track  of  them  all  and  to  see  that  at  some 
stated  interval  they  are  investigated. 


CHAPTER  VII 
TRADE  AND  MENTAL  TESTS 

IF  an  applicant  for  a  job  sees  fit  to  lie  about  his  previous  ex- 
perience there  are  two  ways  in  which  his  misrepresentation 
may  be  discovered,  one  by  finding  out  from  his  previous  em- 
ployers, the  other  by  "trying  him  out."  Former  employers 
have  little  real  interest  in  him  and  cannot  be  expected  to  pay 
sufficient  attention  to  his  case  to  do  it  justice.  The  inquiry 
is  usually  turned  over  to  one  person  after  another  until  finally 
some  one  is  reached  who  has  sufficient  friendship,  or  enmity, 
for  the  man  to  interest  himself  in  his  case  and  so  write  a  reply. 
This  reply  is  thus  seldom  dictated  by  the  disinterested  party 
whom  the  inquirer  would  like  to  reach,  and  experience  indi- 
cates that  only  a  small  proportion  of  these  letters  of  inquiry 
are  answered  by  responsible  persons  and  that  the  answers 
which  are  received  are  not  much  more  dependable  than  the 
original  statements  of  the  applicant.  As  a  consequence  em- 
ployment managers  have  been  inclined  to  consider  the  subject 
of  trade  tests  as  a  substitute,  and  with  the  hope  that  they  may 
prove  to  be  useful. 

Trade  tests  may  be  of  several  varieties,  from  catch  ques- 
tions, answerable  only  by  people  accustomed  to  the  same 
nomenclature  as  the  inquirer,  to  complete  opportunities  for 
"try-out"  on  the  job.  The  same  thing  happens  in  using  these 
tests,  however,  as  is  observed  in  our  schools,  namely,  that  there 
are  certain  people  who  are  very  good  at  passing  examinations, 
and  not  especially  well  fitted  for  anything  else,  and  there  are 
others  that  go  to  pieces  under  pressure,  and  yet  who  can  be 
depended  upon  to  do  their  daily  jobs  successfully. 

The  very  first  requirement  for  a  good  trade  test  is  that  it 
shall  not  be  presented  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  man  un- 

47 


—  48  — 

der  examination  feel  too  keenly  that  he  is  being  marked  on 
the  results  of  his  work.  When  a  man  is  asked  catch  questions 
he  is  likely  to  obtain  a  poor  impression  of  the  firm  that  will 
stoop  to  such  child's  play,  and  he  is  quite  apt  to  leave  in  dis- 
gust. On  the  other  hand,  he  may  have  the  feeling  that  it 
will  be  easy  to  put  almost  anything  over  on  them  if  he  is 
employed.  We  might  go  still  further  and  say  that  it  is 
desirable  to  make  every  effort  to  avoid  asking  questions 
which,  through  ignorance  of  the  man  who  wrote  them,  are 
catch  questions.  Such  questions,  of  course,  cannot  be  re- 
garded as  catch  questions  in  the  part  of  the  country  where 
they  originated,  but  they  are  to  men  from  another  part  of 
the  country.  For  example,  the  names  "monkey  block"  as 
applied  to  the  compound  slide  of  a  lathe,  and  "housing  "  as 
applied  to  the  uprights  or  posts  of  a  planer  may  be  misun- 
derstood by  men  who  can  not  only  operate  but  build  both  ma- 
chines. It  is  desirable,  therefore,  that  all  questions  asked 
should  be  reviewed  by  men  with  broad  acquaintance  and  ex- 
perience so  as  to  avoid  colloquialisms  such  as  these. 

Another  serious  difficulty  is  that  tests  which  consist  of 
questions  alone  can  usually  be  answered  by  men  with  a  book- 
knowledge  of  the  subject  and  nothing  else.  Some  will  reply 
that  men  having  technical  acquaintance  with  these  trades  will 
not  apply,  but  that  is  offset  by  the  large  number  who  have 
started  correspondence  courses  and  gone  far  enough  to  know 
the  implements  of  the  trade.  Such  men  find  these  written 
trade  tests  very  simple,  much  more  so  in  fact  than  holding  the 
job  afterwards. 

The  second  type  of  trade  test  is  one  of  action.  If,  for  ex- 
ample, the  man  is  asking  for  recognition  as  a  cabinet  maker, 
he  is  asked  to  make  a  dovetail  joint  and  of  course  to  do  so 
by  hand.  If  he  is  a  blacksmith  he  is  required  to  "turn"  a 
horse  shoe,  or  repair  a  diamond-point  lathe  tool.  Similar 
tests  are  given  in  other  trades  and  if,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
expert  in  charge,  the  man  does  the  job  in  a  workmanlike  man- 
ner he  is  accepted.  There  are,  however,  two  objections  to  such 
tests:  the  first  that  most  trade  experts  place  quite  as  much 
importance  upon  the  methods  by  which  the  work  is  done  as 
upon  the  results  obtained;  and  the  second  that  trade  tests 


4Q 

AV 

cannot  be  varied  so  much  but  that  it  is  easy  for  outsiders 
to  coach  men  to  pass  them  in  the  same  way  that  men  are 
coached  for  civil  service  and  other  examinations. 

The  trade  test  which  appears  to  give  the  most  satisfaction 
is  the  test  given  while  the  man  is  "on  the  job"  and  at  work  on 
the  product  of  the  shop.  That  is,  the  man  is  hired  condi- 
tionally, and  put  to  work.  If  the  foreman  is  the  kind  of  man 
he  should  be,  he  gives  this  new  man  some  rather  simple  work 
for  a  day  or  two  until  he  gets  used  to  the  place,  and  then  he 
gradually  assigns  more  and  more  difficult  work  to  him  until  he 
finds  out  the  man's  limitations.  In  this  way  two  weeks  may 
be  consumed,  if  the  man  is  as  he  represents  himself  to  be,  but 
if  he  is  a  "faker"  this  can  usually  be  found  out  in  a  few  days. 
If  he  is  taken  on  as  a  beginner  then  of  course  his  "tryout" 
term  is  somewhat  longer.  This  tryout  system  produces  good 
results  only  in  the  hands  of  a  qualified  foreman,  for  if  he  is 
below  the  average  he  may  at  once  put  the  newcomer  on  ihe 
most  difficult  work  the  shop  affords  with  the  idea  of  "taking 
the  starch  out  of  him."  In  such  cases  the  new  man  usually 
helps  to  increase  the  labor  turnover.  His  separation  from 
the  company  may  be  rated  as  due  to  "Incompetent"  or  "Left 
town"  or  "Got  a  better  job,"  but  it  should  really  be  classified 
to  "Poor  foremanship." 

There  is,  nevertheless,  some  preliminary  value  to  be  de- 
rived from  the  results  cf  trade  tests,  because  such  tests  are 
easily  varied,  and  will  thus  not  be  reduced  to  the  coaching 
level.  If  the  interviewer  has  himself  worked  at  the  trade  he 
will  use  his  experience  to  follow  up  any  trifling  statement 
which  makes  him  suspect  the  applicant  is  not  stating  the 
truth.  For  example,  a  man  who  has  run  a  planer  of  a  cer- 
tain make  should  be  able  to  give  a  fair  description  of  its  feed 
mechanism  even  though  he  has  run  it  for  only  a  short  time. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  man  may  be  a  very  good  lathe  hand 
and  while  working  at  it  for  years  he  might  never  have  done 
any  faceplate  work.  In  such  a  case  it  would  hardly  do  to 
turn  him  down  because  of  his  lack  of  familiarity  with  face- 
plate work,  unless  that  were  the  specific  kind  of  a  job  which 
he  might  have  to  do.  It  will  not  do  to  turn  down  an  appli- 
cant for  a  job  as  a  blacksmith  because  his  hands  are  limber, 


—  50  — 

and  he  can  bend  them  back  of  a  straight  line  with  his  palm, 
for  there  are  blacksmiths  who  do  not  "choke"  the  hammer 
handle,  though  we  must  admit  they  are  rare.  So  it  is  with 
all  trade  tests,  they  must  of  necessity  be  the  tests  of  the  indi- 
vidual interviewer,  otherwise  commercial  use  will  be  made  of 
them  by  people  who  tutor  or  coach  their  candidates. 

There  is  still  another  reason  why  the  interviewing  should 
be  done  by  a  high-grade  man,  and  it  is  this:  such  a  man 
has  great  opportunities  for  saving  money  for  the  company. 
If  he  selects  men  nine  times  out  of  ten  who  are  as  good  as 
represented,  he  is  worth  almost  any  sum  he  may  name.  If 
he  gets  them  right  half  the  time  he  is  better  than  most  man- 
agers. In  spite  however  of  all  the  trade  tests  he  may  de- 
velop, he  will  probably  still  continue  to  hire  men  on  his  esti- 
mate of  their  character,  and  if  he  is  backed  by  foremen  who 
will  also  give  men  of  character  a  chance,  he  can  safely  take 
on  many  men  who  may  be  a  disappointment  at  first,  but  who 
under  sympathetic  treatment,  and  proper  instruction  and 
guidance  will  make  the  best  of  workmen.  It  may  be  that  we 
will  ultimately  come  to  think  of  all  candidates  for  jobs  as 
subjects  for  training,  and  that  instead  of  hiring  a  man  for  a 
specific  job,  we  will  hire  him  because  of  his  possibilities,  and 
then  train  him  so  as  to  make  the  best  possible  use  of  his  abil- 
ity. If  that  time  comes  we  will  most  certainly  make  use 
of  the  so-called  psychological  or  mental  tests. 

Mental  tests  are  unquestionably  of  great  value,  but  it 
should  always  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  are  two  things 
which  seem  to  have  more  to  do  with  an  individual's  success 
than  all  the  knowledge  of  specific  detail,  and  these  are  his  tem- 
perament and  his  ability  to  absorb  information — in  other 
words,  his  mental  capacity.  Temperament  may  be  an  inher- 
itance, or  it  may  be  acquired,  but  in  either  case  it  is  an  asset 
or  a  handicap  in  a  given  man  according  to  the  work  he  is 
doing  or  the  people  by  whom  he  is  surrounded.  A  man 
may  be  capable  of  doing  a  large  amount  of  work,  but  if  he 
cannot  do  it  in  harmony  with  a  given  set  of  people  he  will 
have  to  find  the  right  set  or  else  work  alone.  Furthermore,  his 
inability  to  work  with  that  particular  set  does  not  prove  that 
he  lacks  aptitude  for  the  work. 


—  51  — 

It  is  an  almost  universal  rule  that  refinement  is  accompa- 
nied by  sensitiveness.  A  truck  horse  does  not  respond  to  the 
lash  like  a  trotter,  and  a  thoroughbred  dog  will  hide  from  sight 
if  cuffed  lightly  while  the  mongrel  will  have  to  be  whipped 
into  obedience.  The  same  is  true  of  man.  The  more  capa- 
ble a  man  is  of  fine  work,  the  more  easily  is  he  led,  and  the 
harder  driven.  Those  at  the  head  of  the  organization  do  not 
always  consider  this  fact.  They  themselves  are  surrounded 
with  safeguards  against  intrusions,  their  secretaries  keep  un- 
desirable visitors  away,  and  they  depend  on  their  positions 
to  prevent  any  unpleasant  conversation  in  their  inner  sanc- 
tums. Under  such  conditions,  it  is  only  natural  that  they 
wonder  at  an  occasional  lapse  of  temper  on  the  part  of  their 
subordinates,  and  they  forget  the  time  when  they  themselves 
were  not  so  shielded,  and  when  they  also  gave  way  under 
pressure.  All  men  are  human,  and  it  is  not  possible  for 
every  one  to  .shield  himself  from  attack.  If  these  executives 
could  only  see  that  they  are  throwing  away  many  opportuni- 
ties of  developing  good  men,  by  trying  to  turn  a  sensitive  em- 
ployee into  a  thick-skinned  one,  they  might  find  a  hitherto 
unused  source  of  profit.  As  it  is,  vocational  guidance  is  fu- 
tile in  many  instances,  because  after  placing  the  right  man 
at  the  right  job  he  does  not  remain  there  because  he  has  been 
placed  with  the  wrong  people.  In  the  greater  democracy 
toward  which  we  are  moving  let  us  hope  that  we  are  going 
to  get  away  from  the  autocracy  of  those  who  consider  that, 
having  made  their  dollars,  they  have  thereby  become  a  model 
by  which  the  rest  of  the  world  should  be  molded. 

Suppose,  however,  that  we  some  day  reach  the  stage  where 
the  right  man  doing  the  right  work  will  find  himself  so  placed 
that  he  can  be  happy  in  his  surroundings.  Then  we  will  have 
the  problem,  not  of  finding  a  man  trained  for  the  work,  but 
of  finding  a  man  fit  to  do  the  work  who  can  be  trained.  Abil- 
ity to  absorb  training  depends  on  mental  control  of  muscles 
and  on  capacity  for  understanding.  Ability  to  do  many  things 
in  a  profitable  way  is  dependent  on  ability  to  think  quickly  and 
accurately  at  the  same  time.  These  abilities  can  undoubtedly 
be  discovered  by  test,  but  they  are  also  subject  to  improvement 
by  practice.  It  is  possible  to  test  the  length  of  time  for  a 


—  52  — 

muscle  to  respond  to  the  direction  of  the  brain,  and  it  is  also 
possible  to  increase  the  speed  of  transmission  as  any  athletic 
coach  will  testify,  since  the  winning  of  many  a  sprint  lies  in 
the  start  which  in  turn  depends  on  the  speed  with  which  the 
sound  of  the  starter's  pistol  is  transmitted  to  the  leg  muscles 
of  the  runner. 

Mental  tests  are  of  many  kinds,  and  all  have  some  desir- 
able qualities.  They  usually  include  tests  for  memory.  One 
such  test  is  as  follows :  A  page  of  portraits  of  men  and  women 
with  their  names  printed  under  them  is  given  to  the  appli- 
cant, also  another  page  which  contains  the  same  portraits  but 
in  a  different  order  and  without  the  names.  The  applicant 
is  given  a  certain  time  in  which  to  study  the  named  portraits 
and  then  an  equal  time  in  which  to  give  the  right  names  to 
them  in  their  rearranged  order  without  consulting  the  named 
portraits.  This  corresponds  closely  to  introducing  people  to 
the  candidate  and  then  asking  him  later  to  identify  them. 
This,  however,  is  a  very  incomplete  test  of  memory,  as  much 
so  as  it  would  be  to  ask  the  candidate  to  memorize  a  stanza 
of  poetry.  A  test  of  memory  should  be  varied,  as  many  a  man 
with  no  memory  for  faces  never  forgets  a  telephone  number 
or  a  price  quotation,  and  a  great  many  boys  with  the  worst 
possible  remembrance  for  dates  can  tell  the  score  in  every  big 
league  game  for  a  month  back.  Memory  tests  should  be  di- 
rected through  the  eye  by  means  of  pictures,  maps,  figures, 
dates,  etc. ;  through  the  ear  by  means  of  oral  dictation ;  through 
the  nose  by  means  of  the  sense  of  smell,  and  through  the  feel- 
ing by  means  of  the  work  for  which  the  man  is  being  chosen 
to  do.  The  man  whose  work  will  require  him  to  remember 
color  combinations  or  musical  scores  should  not  however  be 
tested  as  to  memory  by  being  asked  to  compare  one  set  of 
portraits  with  another. 

Then  there  is  the  familiar  test  for  definition  of  words  taken 
at  random,  or  for  example  from  the  bottom  of  the  last  col- 
umn on  every  tenth  page  of  the  dictionary.  This  tests  vo- 
cabulary, and  also  curiosity,  for  words  selected  in  this  way 
inevitably  include  many  which  no  workman  or  even  office  man 
can  count  as  an  asset.  The  shoemaker  who  goes  through  life 
thinking  that  the  word  "secular"  relates  to  the  "sexes"  or  to 


—  53  — 

"sects"  will  undoubtedly  do  just  as  good  a  bit  of  shoe  repair- 
ing as  if  he  had  had  the  curiosity  to  look  up  the  word. 

There  is  also  the  concentration  test  in  which  one  is  in- 
structed to  do  numerous  utterly  foolish  things,  and  if  this 
test  is  given  to  an  adult  he  will  usually  be  so  amused  or  dis- 
gusted with  the  test  that  he  will  not  make  a  good  showing.  It 
proves  however  much  or  little  according  to  the  spirit  in  which 
it  is  undertaken.  A  better  test  is  to  fold  a  piece  of  paper  three 
or  four  ways  into  triangles  and  ask  the  candidate  to  fold  his 
piece  the  same  way.  This  tests  both  the  powers  of  imitation 
and  the  ability  to  concentrate,  and  the  test  can  be  varied  so 
that  men  cannot  be  coached.  Another  mental  test  requires 
one  to  name  the  opposite  of  any  word,  as:  now — later;  black — 
white;  hot — cold;  etc.  Matching  of  proverbs,  which  indicates 
to  a  considerable  degree  the  amount  of  thinking  men  have 
done,  is  likewise  a  favorite  test  and  an  excellent  one  if  under- 
taken in  the  right  spirit,  but  one  which  usually  strikes  the 
humor  of  the  candidate  rather  than  his  sense  of  responsibility. 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  take  one  of  these  tests  with  the 
thought  that  any  one  would  make  the  hiring  of  a  man  de- 
pend on  them.  This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  out  of 
them  all  no  good  can  come.  On  the  contrary,  it  should  result 
in  sets  of  easily  variable  tests  which  will  disclose  the  thinking 
powers  of  the  candidate,  and  show  whether  he  has  the  mental 
ability  to  learn.  As  a  test  of  attainment  they  do  not  seem 
promising,  but  as  a  test  of  ability  to  learn  they  should  have 
a  real  value. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
RATING  LABOR  TURNOVER 

THE  subject  of  rating  labor  turnover  has  had  vastly  more 
attention  than  it  deserves,  and  yet  a  book  of  this  kind  is 
hardly  complete  without  some  reference  to  the  methods  em- 
ployed. Practically  all  the  methods  in  use  are  based  on  zero  as 
perfection.  That  is,  no  labor  turnover  is  the  ultimate  goal. 
Usually  it  can  only  be  reached  over  brief  periods  of  time, 
although  a  shop  with  a  few  mature  and  experienced  mechan- 
ics may  not  lose  a  man  for  a  year's  time.  Its  record  is,  there- 
fore, perfect,  although  perfection  is  most  commonly  thought 
of  as  100  per  cent.  The  methods  of  computing  labor  turn- 
over are  analogous  to  those  employed  in  determining  the 
turnover  of  goods  in  a  store  or  market.  There  a  man  turns 
over  his  stock  once,  twice,  or  three  times  a  year.  In  our  shop 
we  also  turn  over  our  working  force  once,  twice,  or  three  times 
a  year  and  call  it  100,  200,  or  300  per  cent,  as  the  case  may  be. 
That  is,  a  complete  change  of  help  each  year  becomes  the  100 
per  cent  labor  turnover.  From  this,  together  with  our  experi- 
ence, we  have  rather  come  to  think  of  a  100  per  cent  turnover 
as  the  normal  thing  and  any  one  whose  rate  for  the  year  is 
greater  or  less  is  quickly  called  upon  to  explain.  The  shop 
whose  turnover  is  500  per  cent  is  bad.  Why  is  it?  If  it  is 
50  per  cent,  please  also  explain.  Do  they  keep  men  they 
ought  to  discharge?  Do  they  pay  more  than  the  market  rate 
of  wages?  What  is  the  matter? 

Practically  every  one  agrees  in  their  method  of  figuring 
labor  turnover  up  to  the  point  that  it  is  some  kind  of  change 
of  help  per  year  divided  by  the  normal  force  for  that  year. 
Beyond  that  all  is  disagreement,  but  the  basis  of  all  these 
methods  is  the  use  of  zero  as  perfection,  and  the  custom  is 

54 


—  55  — 

probably  too  deeply  rooted  to  be  upset  now  no  matter  how 
thoroughly  we  may  believe  it  to  be  wrong.  The  greatest  ob- 
jection to  it,  however,  is  the  tendency  to  look  on  a  100  per 
cent  turnover  as  being  near  enough  to  perfection  and  the  fact 
that  comparisons  based  on  labor  turnover  without  analysis 
are  not  apt  to  be  fair.  The  greatest  gain  that  is  likely  to  be 
made  is  in  the  analysis  of  turnover.  If  we  have  a  thousand 
sick  men  in  a  hospital  we  know  how  many  beds  we  must  pro- 
vide, and  we  know  roughly  how  large  the  building  must  be, 
but  until  we  know  what  ails  them  we  can  do  very  little  toward 
curing  them.  Just  so,  if  we  know  how  large  the  labor  turnover 
is  in  a  given  shop  we  can  tell  how  large  a  room  must  be  pro- 
vided for  the  employment  department,  and  how  many  inter- 
views will  be  needed,  but  we  have  no  help  from  the  gross 
percentage  of  turnover  to  aid  us  in  finding  the  cure. 

An  analysis  according  to  departments  shows  the  personal 
relations  between  foreman,  working  conditions,  and  the  men. 
An  analysis  of  causes  of  leaving  shows  impersonal  remedial 
measures.  An  analysis  of  the  men's  condition  of  life  gives  us  a 
line  on  future  hirings  and  it  usually  indicates  a  preference 
for  married  men.  An  analysis  of  applicants  and  employees 
accepted  gives  a  line  on  the  state  of  the  labor  market  and  in 
general  we  wish  to  know  how  many  laborers  without  tech- 
nical knowledge  of  the  simplest  sort  are  applying  and  taken  in, 
how  many  learners,  and  how  many  experienced  men.  We  also 
like  to  know  of  each  of  these  groups  how  many  of  them  are  re- 
hired  and  how  many  are  new.  It  is  better  to  make  the  divi- 
sion between  learners  and  experienced  men,  because  the  cus- 
tomary division  between  skilled  and  semi-skilled  has  a  dif- 
ferent significance  to  each  man  who  makes  an  analysis,  while 
we  usually  know  when  we  hire  a  man  whether  we  expect  to 
train  him  for  some  job  or  whether  he  is  fitted  to  step  directly 
into  it.  If  the  latter,  he  expects  to  be  retained  only  if  he 
makes  good  without  training;  but  if  the  former,  he  is  not  ex- 
pected to  make  much  of  a  showing  until  he  has  had  a  more 
or  less  definite  time  in  which  to  learn  his  work.  In  this  con- 
nection Figures  3  and  4  on  the  following  pages  are  of  interest 
as  they  illustrate  different  types  of  forms  used  in  recording 
labor  turnover.  » 


—  56  — 


NO  NSW  aaewrm 


M33M  isvi  -noa 
NO  N3H  aaanriN 


SNIA>T3T  'ON  1X101  | 


S3SIVO  H3H10 


CHVO3U  JO  XOTI  ~ 


Niidiosia  aod 


SNOIlldNOO 
9N1AH 


OI193KCXI 


M«OM  3D3l<H'S 


LU    a3XOldW3-3a 

6( 


&!it 


ijlS!! 


1N3:  83d 


dO'ON 


'ON  N>J3W 


Q'T  'ad 
NO  'ON 


SI  ' 
NO 'ON 


Id3a 


Id3d 


SS3NMOIS 


HOIWOIXOiNl 


MoumuaoanGM 


A01JM3  39WHO 


QNlSnOH 


'OirAl?na'13M>Mt3H 


S39VM 


turns 


SH3NOT31 


—  57  — 


p,UodSy  ««N 

»«>D  »d 

i 

SUX3  1Y10J. 

* 

«DN«uN31,ioi 

1  * 

Ul 

> 

5 

i 

E 

^       y                                    Sii^lQ 

1  °  *        "tZSq 

i  s    (,.^j)7s*u'FH 

=  s     p"»"p"*^'sd 

o  s          £u,'Sda 

£  s                 P»I'«J 

|  a                pwwMJd 

-   S        t«t»a  ,r,«XW 

s 

t     S                         PSAOIIJIU3 

5  a      .Uo«»a  i^Vid 

S       MJO  j   9SWJ5JO  QJ. 

a 

a                 pnpw»<.W 

;                »)tuipjoqnsu| 

o    Si         wp?sjg  aiqnojj 

•*    8                           jonbr 

o   a                  •HRP"*! 

S                ^nxJu.ooui 

s                 fan 

S                   »|»<^) 

«   S               umounufi 

•  R           V0/ft»l 

S   S|o2J^i,*<^3 

_                       «Jl»0|j 

S  ^  a      "">!''p"°2 

3         v                   ^^  rl 

t  2  -    4IU4H  »«»M 

I    »                     4UO|OUO|I| 

o  =              H»I"H  III 

I  -       »U^!J"»H 

*  =                 •»«•« 

IF  TURNOVER 

ENTRANCES 

0  =        £E!£Jaia 

c    _                            Dsiiej 

z    °                     PSIOUJOJJ 

-  o.        .uotray^l^ld 

0  • 

S  ~                   w«<iri 

2  .                Mura-] 

K     -                      pwu^d^ 

g   -                    «~osn 

wu«n 

p.3Wu>d«3 

RECORD  C 

«^ 

LABOR  TURNOVER  RECORD. 
NDING  L.H.SHATTUCK  INC. 

ST«101 

• 

uc 

I 

X 

.     .     & 

i 

t 
c 

REASONS  FOR  DEPARTURES 

z 

u 
3 

5S3NM01S 

UJ 

1 

-    a: 

SNOI1IQNOD 
QNIAH  OVS 

H- 

TOOHOS 
01  9MI09 

-noa  HOJU 

ul 

30IAM3S 

1 

KOIllSOd 

5 

K- 

301AS3S 

xyviniw 

Ul 

S 

a: 

31SVHIS3GK 

2 

9or  SHI 

NOd3319V 

1- 
cO 

3OVM 

J.in6 

a: 
5 

1 

9N1MOWQ 

5 
S 

Ul 

1 

MMOM 

aavH  ooi          \ 
unb             1 

i 

3WOH                   \ 
9NIO9 

unb              / 

aOOO-NOM 

0 

nvioi 

E 

i- 

u. 

Ill 

I 

0 

I 

k 

Ul 

•wio 

I   -              1 

£ 

FOR  WE 

1 

> 

' 

s       i] 

0 

T*1O 

Lfe 

8 

Ul 

O 
Ul 
U 

.1 

I       1 

§ 

EMPLOYM 

1 

5      i 

Mil 

j  _i 
5  o 

—  58  — 

Once  an  analysis  is  made  there  is  a  basis  for  comparison 
within  the  shop,  which  is  much  more  valuable  than  a  com- 
parison between  shops.  We  keep  comparative  cost  accounts 
for  this  same  purpose.  We  do  not  go  out  and  advertise  from 
the  housetops  that  our  costs  per  ton  or  gross  are  so  much  or 
so  little,  but  we  do  watch  the  fluctuation  of  cost  from  month 
to  month  between  departments,  and  we  do  so  with  profit.  To 
be  sure,  if  we  stop  making  so  much  of  percentage  of  labor 
turnover  we  give  up  a  strong  talking  point  for  employment 
management,  for  it  is  possible  to  show  that  if  a  given  firm's 
labor  turnover  is  reduced  from  200  to  100  per  cent  and  they 
have  5000  men  they  have  thus  saved  the  training  of  5000 
per  year,  which  at  $100  each  is  a  saving  of  a  half  million  dol- 
lars. While  this  is  undoubtedly  true,  yet  because  that  par- 
ticular half  million  is  not  segregated,  and  because  it  may  be 
more  than  the  whole  year's  net  profit,  it  makes  it  difficult  for 
the  employment  manager  to  get  even  a  hundred  dollars  added 
to  his  salary  on  account  of  the  saving. 

The  whole  theory  that  employment  management  cuts  down 
labor  turnover  is  reluctantly  accepted  hy  proprietors.  The 
employment  department  does  not  cut  down  labor  turnover. 
By  making  itself  a  perfect  nuisance  the  employment  depart- 
ment can  get  reforms  installed  in  various  departments  of  the 
shop  which  will  reduce  labor  turnover,  but  in  very  few  if  any 
instances  is  it  placed  in  a  position  to  put  those  reforms  in  op- 
eration. The  choice  and  selection  of  men  and  vocational  guid- 
ance are  the  only  means  that  are  completely  enough  in 
their  hands  to  effect  a  tangible  result.  If  the  interviewers 
are  sufficiently  well  acquainted  with  the  different  foremen  so 
that  they 'can  send  to  each  department  the  type  of  men  whom 
its  foremen  will  give  adequate  attention,  it  can  in  this  way 
reduce  labor  turnover  decidedly  over  what  it  will  be  if  men 
are  suited  to  the  work,  but  not  to  the  foreman.  The  work, 
however,  may  not  be  done  as  well  nor  as  efficiently,  but  the 
turnover  will  be  less.  On  the  other  hand,  working  conditions, 
hours,  wages,  and  methods  of  paying,  etc.,  are  only  the  sub- 
ject of  advice  on  the  part  of  the  employment  manager.  In 
other  words,  the  value  of  an  employment  department  is  not 
necessarily  expressed  in  terms  of  reduction  of  labor  turnover, 


—  59  — 

for  the  total  turnover  for  a  shop  does  not  express  anything 
that  is  of  real  value  to  any  branch  of  the  organization. 

As  previously  stated,  labor  turnover  is  quite  generally 
agreed  upon  to  be  changes  of  employees  over  a  year's  time  di- 
vided by  total  employees.  The  disagreements  arise  over 
whether  change  shall  be  expressed  by  numbers  leaving,  com- 
ing, or  by  replacements.  Also  whether  unavoidable  changes 
shall  be  neglected,  and  whether  the  denominator  of  the  frac- 
tion shall  be  actual  men  working  full  time  and  totaled  day 
by  day  or  whether  a  rougher  approximation  shall  be  used. 
To  some  it  seems  that  the  number  of  hirings  should  be  used, 
because  that  is  the  apparent  fundamental  reason  for  having 
an  employment  department;  hiring,  however,  costs  but  little. 
Others  say  that  the  number  of  those  leaving  should  be  used, 
because  that  is  the  loss,  and  the  loss  of  men  adds  to  the  shop 
expense.  Still  others,  and  among  them  the  writer,  believe 
that  replacements  should  be  used,  because  the  greatest  cost 
of  labor  turnover  lies  in  the  cost  of  training,  and  actually 
only  those  who  are  hired  to  replace  those  who  have  left  repre- 
sent labor  turnover.  If,  for  example,  a  shop  is  growing  in 
size,  no  employment  department  can  keep  the  number  hired 
below  the  number  required  to  increase  the  force  and  it  should 
not  in  any  sense  be  charged  with  the  cost  of  hiring  and  train- 
ing these  men.  To  be  sure,  expansion  of  business  is  accom- 
panied by  a  certain  cost  of  training  an  additional  number  of 
men,  but  such  costs  should  be  considered  by  the  sales  depart- 
ment before  it  decides  upon  making  the  effort  to  increase  the 
sales,  and  it  is  almost  certain  that  the  cost  of  the  product  will 
be  burdened  with  a  greater  cost  for  training  men  because  of 
the  expansion  of  business.  That  is,  in  order  to  increase  the 
force  by  a  hundred  men  it  may  be  necessary  to  train  or  partly 
train  five  hundred.  The  first  hundred,  or  rather  the  hundred 
who  finally  remain,  should  be  a  charge  to  the  expansion,  but 
the  other  four  hundred  who  were  wrongly  selected  should  be 
a  charge  against  the  employment  department,  or  such  other 
department  as  contributed  to  the  causes  which  led  these  four 
hundred  to  terminate  their  connection. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  case  of  a  shop  which  is  experienc- 
ing a  decrease  of  business.  If  it  must  decrease  its  force  by 


—  60  — 

one  hundred  men  and  it  discharges  them,  then  the  employment 
department  should  not  be  charged  with  what  it  had  previ- 
ously cost  to  train  those  men,  because  it  had  already  been 
charged  with  that  cost  once  before  when  they  were  hired  and 
the  cost  of  their  training  incurred.  If,  however,  in  the  proc- 
ess of  decrease  two  hundred  men  left  and  one  hundred  who 
were  hired  were  taken  on  to  replace  another  hundred  who 
were  not  discharged,  and  whose  dismissal  was  not  contem- 
plated, then  the  employment  department  should  be  charged 
with  cost  of  replacing  that  hundred  men  who  were  lost  un- 
intentionally. Many  claim,  however,  that  all  men  hired  have 
to  be  trained  and,  therefore,  they  bring  an  expense  on  the 
firm  which  should  be  charged  against  the  employment  de- 
partment. Others  claim  that  the  men  leaving  should  be  used 
as  a  basis,  on  the  ground  that  they  were  an  asset,  as  the  re- 
sult of  an  investment,  and  that  their  leaving  is  a  loss.  Both 
are  right  to  a  certain  extent,  but  neither  of  these  latter  plans 
takes  into  account  the  fact  that  expansion  or  contraction  of 
a  business  is  not  usually  within  the  scope  of  the  employment 
department,  and  that  it  is  either  good  management  which 
allows  the  expansion  or  bad  luck  which  necessitates  contrac- 
tion. It  is  true  that  the  firm  which  expands  unduly  may  have 
to  contract,  and  equally  so  that  the  firm  that  contracts  may 
expand.  Over  long  periods  of  time,  however,  the  contraction 
or  expansion  becomes  only  a  small  matter  compared  with  the 
total  flow.  For  example,  a  shop  begins  with  1000  men  and 
increases  100  men  per  year  for  ten  years.  During  that  time 
it  maintains  a  turnover  of  nearly  200  per  cent.  It  will,  there- 
fore, take  in  30,000  people  and  lose  29,000,  and  its  turnover 
figured  by  three  methods,  whose  differences  are  so  small  as 
to  be  negligible,  are  therefore  as  follows: 

OQ  noo 
Replacements    .............    ,  iv:   -^  10  =  187% 

1,550 


Hirings   ...................  4-  10  =  193ft 

1,550 


Leavings  ..................  -  10  = 

1,550 


—  61  — 

The  different  methods  of  obtaining  the  denominator  like- 
wise change  the  result  but  slightly.  It  should  be  kept  in  mind 
that  the  number  of  men  on  the  payroll  cannot  be  above  the 
number  of  places  or  stations  in  the  shop.  The  number  of 
stations  vacant  may  be  considerable,  but  if  the  average  at- 
tendance is  90  per  cent  this  does  not  mean  that  it  is  safe  to 
put  on  a  force  of  110  per  cent  of  the  number  of  stations  be- 
cause on  Wednesdays  and  Thursdays  there  will  be  nearly  100 
per  cent  attendance.  That  is,  the  shop  equipment  must  be 
such  as  to  carry  the  peak  load  of  employees  the  days  they  are 
present.  Therefore,  it  would  seem  as  though  the  total  num- 
ber of  names  on  the  payroll  is  a  reasonable  basis  for  com- 
putation, and  to  arrive  at  an  average  of  this  number  over  a 
period  of  a  year  it  is  usually  near  enough  to  take  the  average 
of  those  on  the  payroll  at  the  first  of  each  month.  This  is, 
of  course,  on  the  assumption  that  the  names  of  employees 
that  have  left  are  promptly  dropped  from  the  payroll. 

The  question  of  unavoidable  losses  is  not  a  large  one. 
Death  claims  but  few.  Minors  have  to  change  at  the  bidding 
of  their  parents.  Employees  also  become  superannuated. 
All  these,  however,  are  but  "a  drop  in  the  bucket"  compared 
with  the  great  numbers  who  leave  because  they  think  they 
can  better  themselves.  Consequently  labor  turnover  com- 
puted by  dividing  the  number  of  those  who  leave  by  the 
number  of  those  who  are  on  the  pay  list  month  by  month  or 
week  by  week  gives  as  nearly  a  correct  figure  of  labor  turn- 
over as  one  obtained  by  any  other  means. 

In  this  connection  an  illustration  of  the  method  of  com- 
puting the  cost  of  labor  turnover  might  prove  of  interest,  and 
the  following  specific  case  is  accordingly  presented  in  the  hopes 
that  it  may  arouse  discussion.  The  figures  are  actual  but  the 
names  are  fictitious.  The  problem  is  to  determine  what  it 
cost  the  Blank  Manufacturing  Company  to  allow  John  Smith 
to  leave  and  to  fill  his  place  with  John  Doe.  It  is  a  simple 
case  in  that  only  the  one  attempt  was  necessary  to  fill  the  job. 
The  wages  paid  to  Doe  are  shown  graphically  in  Figure  5.  We 
are  neglecting  any  mention  of  the  actual  cost  of  handling  the 
separation  of  Smith  from  the  company,  and  the  discovering 
and  hiring  of  Doe,  for  each  of  these  operations  costs  on  the 


—  62  — 

average  a  little  less  than  a  dollar,  and  they  may  well  be  neg- 
lected inasmuch  that  we  are  by  no  means  sure  within  many 
dollars  of  the  other  costs. 

It  will  be  seen  by  Figure  5  that  during  the  time  Doe  was 
learning  we  paid  him  $49.81  more  at  day  rates  than  he  would 
have  received  if  we  had  paid  him  at  piece-work  rates.  This, 
we  are  sure,  is  a  part  of  the  cost  of  replacing  Smith.  Also,  at 
the  time  this  change  took  place,  we  find  that  we  made  an  ac- 
ceptable profit  when  our  piece  workers  were  making  40  cents 
per  hour.  The  only  excuse  for  retaining  men  making  less 

April        May       June      July         Au9-        Sept.      Oct. 
510 152025  510152025    510152025   510152025    5!OI5"2025    510152025  510152025 


510152025  5 10 153325    510152025  510152025    510152025  510152025  510152025 
April        May        June      July         Aug.       Sept.       Oct. 

FIGURE  5.    GRAPHIC  EEPRESENTATION  OF  WAGES  PAID  TO  JOHN  DOE. 

than  that  was  that  they  were  learners  and  could  be  expected 
to  make  more  later  on,  so  that  they  would  repay  us  for  the 
loss  in  production.  During  the  time  before  Doe  reached  the 
40-cent  rate  we  would  have  paid  him,  if  he  had  been  a  normal 
producer,  $115.50  in  addition  to  the  $49.81  mentioned.  Dur- 
ing all  this  time  our  manufacturing  overhead  was  practically 
a  dollar  an  hour.  From  the  time  he  came  with  us  until  he 
passed  the  40-cent  rate  the  overhead  charges  totaled  $800, 
which,  however,  must  be  spread  over  the  $162  worth  of  work 
which  he  actually  did,  or  practically  500  per  cent  overhead 


against  250  per  cent  for  the  average  man.  From  this  we  con- 
clude that  one-half  of  this  $800  for  overhead  charges  has  been 
wasted  and  so  we  add  to  the  account  against  the  change  $400 
less  the  $115.50  mentioned  above.  The  total  cost  for  the 
training  period  by  this  method  of  computation  would  then  be : 

Paid  hour  rate  above  piece  rate  earnings $49.81 

Excess  overhead  charge  incurred  284.50 


$334.31 

Another  way  in  which  this  may  be  figured,  but  which  seems 
to  make  it  still  more  expensive  to  change  help,  is  as  follows: 

Total  wages  paid  Smith  while  reaching  normal 

productivity    $211.75 

Overhead  paid  during  that  time  per  man 800.00 


$1011.75 

Value  of  work  done $162.00 

Overhead  which  would  have  been 

paid  if  it  had  been  done  by  Doe, 

250  per  cent  405.00          567.00 


$444.75 

Possibly  this  second  method  is  not  only  less  involved  but 
also  more  nearly  correct.  It  has  seemed  to  the  writer  that 
it  was  better  to  put  all  the  expenses,  outside  of  actual  train- 
ing, under  the  general  charge  of  overhead  as  that  is  where  they 
show  in  most  accounting  systems.  If  we  attempt  to  pick  out 
all  the  items  of  spoiled  work,  damaged  tools  and  machinery, 
additional  expense  for  accidents  and  so  on,  we  get  into  a  maze 
of  uncertainty.  Neither  of  the  methods  suggested  above  may 
be  the  best  but  if  we  wish  to  valuate  the  work  of  service  de- 
partments we  must  do  it  on  some  approximate  basis  which 
uses  the  material  offered  by  the  regular  accounting  system  of 
the  factory,  and  which  can  be  applied  both  to  individual  cases 
and  to  department  turnover  as  a  whole.  The  case  cited  is  one 
in  which  the  payment  of  piece  rates  with  an  hourly  rate  dur- 
ing part  of  the  learning  time  simplifies  the  problem  of  earn- 


—  64  — 

ings,  but  except  in  new  jobs  it  should  be  possible,  under  any 
modern  system  of  cost  keeping,  to  compare  a  man's  actual 
earnings  with  those  which  are  average,  or  necessary  to  the  run- 
ning of  the  shop  on  a  fair  profit. 

Coupled  with  labor  turnover  and  subject  to  some  of  the 
same  limitations  is  tardiness.  This  is  figured  on  a  percentage 
basis  from  number  of  people  late  and  number  of  oppor- 
tunities. For  example,  if  15  people  are  late  once  a  day  in  a 
shop  with  1000  present,  the  percentage  of  tardiness  would  be 
figured  by  dividing  15,  the  number  of  tardinesses,  by  2000, 
the  number  of  opportunities,  or  %  of  1  per  cent.  Percentage 
of  tardiness  is  also  figured  on  the  basis  of  total  number  on  the 
payroll,  which  is  much  more  easily  done  and  just  as  accurate. 
It,  too,  is  of  value  only  when  used  to  decrease  tardiness  and 
that  it  cannot  do  unless  the  reasons  for  tardiness  are  known. 
For  example,  as  happens  occasionally,  the  company  arranges 
car  service  to  the  factory  in  the  morning  and  the  cars  do  not 
reach  the  factory  on  time,  then  the  management  should  be 
called  to  account  rather  than  the  people  who  are  late.  What 
happens,  however,  is  that  the  foreman  or  head  of  the  depart- 
ment does  not  have  access  to  the  management  and  would  not 
dare  tell  them  the  truth  if  he  did,  so  he  makes  it  unpleasant 
for  the  subordinates,  and  quite  likely  at  the  very  same  time 
some  member  of  the  management  is  telling  some  enthusiastic 
convention  how  efficiently  they  handle  transportation  for  their 
employees. 

As  in  the  case  of  labor  turnover  comparisons  with  other 
plants  have  only  a  slight  value  as  compared  with  analysis  be- 
tween departments  or  analysis  by  distances  traveled.  The 
latter  is  apt  to  show  that  there  are  certain  car  lines  and  cer- 
tain distances  have  their  high  percentage  of  tardiness.  Peo- 
ple who  live  next  door,  especially  if  they  are  married,  cannot 
be  expected  to  be  prompt.  There  are  a  multitude  of  little 
things  around  the  house  that  "hubby"  can  do  so  easily  in  the 
last  two  or  three  minutes,  which  take  fifteen.  The  most  re- 
liable man  is  the  man  who  lives  the  furthest  and  has  the  least 
dependable  transportation.  He  starts  about  two  cars  too  early. 


CHAPTER  IX 

HAS  THE  EMPLOYMENT  DEPARTMENT  ANY  PART 
IN  THE  DEMOCRATIZATION  OF  INDUSTRY? 

AN  employment  department  is  a  hiring  agency,  for  it  dis- 
covers and  selects  men  and  women  for  the  jobs  which  the 
company  offers.  This  is  its  preliminary  function.  It  has, 
however,  added  little  by  little  to  its  duties  until  now  its  ambi- 
tion, realized  in  a  few  instances,  is  to  become  the  connecting 
link,  the  diplomatic  channel,  between  employee  and  employer. 
In  other  words,  the  employment  department  now  aims  to  take 
up  one  of  the  most  important  functions  of  foremanship  as  it 
was  formerly  understood,  and  unless  foremen  rise  to  their  op- 
portunities better  than  they  have  in  past  years  some  such 
change  is  inevitable. 

The  democratization  of  industry,  when  one  gets  close  to 
it  and  looks  it  squarely  in  the  eye,  is  not  the  "bug-a-boo"  that 
some  have  feared,  for  it  is  apparent  now  it  merely  means  that 
instead  of  the  management  getting  its  information  as  to  the 
state  of  mind  of  its  employees  through  foremen  and  a  few  iso- 
lated workmen,  all  anxious  to  say  something  that  will  please, 
it  will  get  such  information  through  workmen's  committees. 
The  information  will  thus  be  authoritative  rather  than  con- 
jectural, and  instead  of  the  men  letting  grievances  go  until 
their  imaginations  make  mountains  of  them,  there  will  be 
earnest  and  serious  consideration  by  both  parties  before  any 
blows  are  struck. 

Who  is  in  a  better  position  to  represent  the  management 
in  this  process  of  getting  together  than  the  employment  de- 
partment? It  has  tried,  and  tried  honestly  in  almost  all  cases, 
to  be  impartial  and  to  take  the  place  of  shop  committees  as 
well  as  act  for  the  management.  It  cannot,  however,  do  both, 

65 


—  66  — 

for  its  very  existence  depends  solely  on  the  management.  Its 
self-interest  is  thus  with  the  management,  and  no  matter  how 
broad-minded  it  may  be,  this  necessity  compels  loyalty  even 
where  its  best  judgment  and  sympathies  are  with  the  men  in 
the  shops.  Nevertheless  as  a  body  to  represent  the  manage- 
ment, the  employment  department  is  ideally  placed,  because 
it  has,  or  should  have,  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  financial  con- 
dition of  the  company  to  know  what  wages  it  can  pay  for  a 
given  production,  or  how  much  it  can  expend  on  improved 
working  conditions. 

For  example,  if  a  building  costing  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  dollars  has  been  built  in  such  a  location  that  it  shuts  off 
air  and  light  from  another  building  where  the  work  generates 
great  heat,  the  working  conditions  may  become  unbearable 
and  an  individual  strike  may  soon  be  in  full  sway.  If,  how- 
ever, the  interests  of  the  workmen  had  been  consulted,  the 
building  would  never  have  been  placed  there,  and  if  the  man- 
agement had  realized  that  the  increased  labor  turnover  caused 
by  this  proximity  would  cost  them  more  every  year  than  the 
building  did,  they  would  not  have  built  it  either.  But  there 
was  no  one  to  warn  them.  The  workmen  did  not  know  the 
building  was  planned  until  the  contract  was  let,  and  even  then 
they  did  not  know  how  high  it  was  going  to  be  until  the  con- 
tractor laid  the  roof  timbers.  The  same  is  true  in  many,  many 
activities.  The  management  is  so  sure  of  itself  and  its  su- 
perior minds  that  it  fails  to  realize  that  in  the  shop  are  many 
men  who  may  later  rise  to  put  them  out  of  business,  just  as 
they  passed  and  left  behind  the  men  who  were  so  sure  they 
knew  it  all  in  the  preceding  generation.  It  would  seem  as 
though  any  management  would  be  anxious  to  secure  the  co- 
operation of  all  the  ability  in  the  organization.  Few,  how- 
ever, see  it  in  that  light,  sometimes  because  they  cannot  see 
any  ability  to  recognize,  and  sometimes  because  they  are  afraid 
that  if  they  do  recognize  it,  others  will  think  that  they  them- 
selves are  slipping  behind. 

Another  reason  why  ability  is  often  not  recognized  is  the 
fact  that  there  is  still  a  feeling  that  individual  property  rights 
are  necessary.  For  instance,  a  man  starts  a  business,  it  grows 
and  he  takes  in  a  few  trusted  employees  or  some  friends  with 


—  67  — 

some  money,  always  retaining,  however,  51  per  cent  or  more 
of  the  stock.  He  does  not  necessarily  select  these  men  for 
their  ability,  but  often  for  their  social  qualities  or  to  please  his 
wife,  or  for  some  other  equally  unscientific  reason.  Having 
surrounded  himself  with  a  few  choice  friends,  he  may  next 
decide  to  sell  more  stock  and  to  sell  it  in  the  market  so  that  he 
and  his  friends  may  still  control  the  business  by  trusting  to 
luck  that  the  purchasers  will  never  bother  to  attend  a  stock- 
holders' meeting.  During  all  of  this  development  he  has  seen 
to  it  that  he  has  taken  no  visible  chance  of  losing  control.  It 
is  still  his  business  and  he  talks  about  it  as  such,  and  the  mo- 
ment a  suggestion  is  made  that  employees  be  allowed  to  pur- 
chase stock,  his  hands  go  up  in  holy  horror.  What  if  they 
should  at  some  distant  date  acquire  control?  Then  HE  would 
be  out  and  chaos  would  reign.  To  him  it  is  a  horrible  and 
incomprehensible  situation.  He  cannot  understand  how  any 
one  else  could  conduct  the  business  successfully.  His  own 
sons,  bright  though  they  may  be  in  other  people's  minds,  could 
not  possibly  do  it.  It  is  safer  to  let  them  play  golf  and  travel 
on  his  earnings  than  to  "let  them  monkey  around  the  works." 
Or  if  they  do  come  in  they  must  be  held  at  drudgery  until 
they  lose  all  spirit  and  get  to  believe  that  the  old  way  is  the 
only  way.  Under  these  conditions  with  this  feeling  of  in- 
tense egotism  controlling  so  many  industries,  is  it  any  wonder 
that  industrial  democracy  makes  slow  headway? 

It  must  also  be  admitted  that  such  examples  as  we  have 
had  of  shops  and  stores  turned  over  to  employees  has  not 
been  altogether  reassuring.  Cooperative  stores  are  perhaps 
among  the  most  marked  examples  of  enterprises  conducted 
by  workmen  and  clubs  for  their  own  benefit.  They  seldom 
run  for  any  great  length  of  time.  Those  that  do  are  usually 
found  to  have  been  dominated  by  some  one  leader  who  proved 
to  be  a  better  organizer  and  manager  than  even  he  suspected. 
He  has  become  just  as  truly  the  owner  of  the  store  as  the  man 
across  the  street  who  has  his  own  name  on  the  sign.  His 
associates  do  not  overthrow  him  because  they  are  afraid  they 
cannot  get  any  one  else  to  run  it,  or  because  they  cannot  agree 
among  themselves  as  to  his  successor.  The  fundamental 
trouble  seems  to  be  that  they  cannot  agree,  any  more  than 


—  68  — 

other  people  can,  to  pay  any  one  a  salary  in  excess  of  what 
they  are  getting  themselves.  If  industrial  democracy  is  to 
succeed,  workmen  will  have  to  be  educated  to  see  that  men 
whose  ability  makes  it  possible  for  them  to  produce  more 
should  receive  a  greater  compensation.  The  coxswain  in  an 
eight-oar  shell  iz  a  little  insignificant  fellow  and  he  looks  like 
excess  baggage.  And  yet  in  a  race  he  is  worth  at  least  as  much 
as  any  of  the  oarsmen. 

This  education  of  the  workmen  ought  to  have  been  going 
on  for  years.  Nothing  has  been  done,  however,  and  now  as  a 
result  we  are  in  serious  danger  of  seeing  many  experiments  in 
democratization  fail.  Shop  committees  will  likely  be  formed 
and  then  they  will  make  the  most  preposterous  demand  that 
salaries  of  executives  be  reduced,  and  that  can  only  result  in 
many  changes,  for  such  men  will  not  be  reduced.  They  will 
prefer  to  leave  and  take  a  position  elsewhere  even  if  at  a 
lower  salary,  or  they  may  very  likely  become  producers  them- 
selves. In  their  places  will  be  put  men  who  are  in  the  favor 
of  the  men  on  the  shop  committee,  chosen,  like  the  circle  of 
friends  around  the  original  proprietor,  for  qualities  other  than 
business  ability.  The  result  must  inevitably  be  a  lessened  ef- 
ficiency, a  still  greater  increase  in  the  cost  of  living,  and  an  all- 
around  imitation  of  the  ills  of  government  in  a  republic.  In 
the  long  run,  workmen  will  become  educated,  they  will  elect 
capable  men  as  leaders  and  there  will  be  no  apparent  change 
from  present  conditions.  Workmen  will  acquire  the  same 
apathy  that  stockholders  now  have  and  will  not  attend  meet- 
ings or  even  read  balance  sheets,  unless  they  show  that  a  divi- 
dend must  be  passed.  But  during  the  transition  period,  if 
it  comes,  we  will  have  to  pay  heavily  for  the  luxury  of  de- 
mocratization just  as  we  now  pay  heavily  for  everything  that 
is  managed  by  the  government. 

Possibly  there  may  be  redeeming  features.  Possibly  there 
will  be  greater  honesty  in  the  goods  produced.  Where  every 
one  knows  what  is  going  on,  evil  doing  is  exposed  at  once,  for 
only  a  small  group  can  carry  on  underhanded  schemes.  There 
will  be  less  work  done  under  unhealthful  conditions,  there 
will  be  an  unearthing  of  a  great  many  petty  faults  of  fore- 
men that  have  hitherto  been  glanced  over,  but  the  net  result 


—  69  — 

for  some  time  to  come  cannot  help  but  be  an  increase  of  the 
high  cost  of  living.  It  should  finally  be  borne  in  mind  that 
we  have  practically  worked  under  a  scheme  of  democratiza- 
tion so  far  as  production  is  concerned  all  during  the  war. 
Foremen  then  did  not  increase  production  by  loud  talk.  They 
were  only  able  to  get  it  by  offering  good  facilities  for  doing 
the  work  and  paying  extremely  well  for  getting  it  done. 


PART  II 


Chapter 

X 

Chapter 

XI 

Chapter 

XII 

Chapter 

XIII 

Chapter 

XIV 

Chapter 

XV 

Chapter 

XVI 

Chapter 

XVII 

Chapter 

XVIII 

Chapter 

XIX 

Chapter 

XX 

DEVELOPING  THE  LABOR  SUPPLY  .  .  73 

SELECTING  AND  PLACING  WORKERS  .  84 

THE  UNEMPLOYED  WORKMAN  .  .  92 

ADVERTISING  AND  SCOUTING  ...  96 

EMPLOYMENT  AGENCIES  ....  102 

COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  ....  109 

REFERENCES  .  .  .  .  .  •  .  .  .  118 

FOLLOW-UP  IN  THE  SHOP  ....  124 

ATTENDANCE  131 

TRANSFERS 135 

THE  EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  OFFICE 

FORCE  .........  139 

WOMEN  IN  THE  SHOPS 146 

EMPLOYMENT  OF  MINORS  ....  154 

EMPLOYMENT  OF  CRIPPLES  .  161 

SOCIAL  MISFITS 167 

SAFETY  ENGINEERING  AS  RELATED  TO 

EMPLOYMENT  .                     ...  172 


CHAPTER  X 

DEVELOPING  THE  LABOR  SUPPLY 

INDUSTRIAL  history  is  a  record  of  alternate  feast  and 
famine,  whether  we  look  at  the  labor  problem  from  the 
point  of  view  of  employer  or  employee.  The  periods  of  exact 
adjustment  of  supply  to  demand  have  been  few  and  passing. 
In  a  primitive  state  every  one  worked  as  hard  and  as  long  as 
he  chose,  and  he  lived  well  or  poorly  according  as  he  worked 
hard,  long,  and  effectively  or  the  reverse.  There  was  the  ad- 
vantage, however,  that  no  one  suffered  for  lack  of  opportunity, 
no  matter  how  much  he  might  lack  in  comfort  or  luxury. 

One  of  the  penalties  of  the  capitalistic  scheme  of  organiza- 
tion is  that  every  time  the  workers  take  a  real  hand  in  govern- 
ment capital  becomes  afraid,  and  draws  in  its  credits  until 
the  storm  has  passed,  and  since  most  business  is  done  on  credit, 
its  contraction  is  fatal  to  employment.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
credit  is  good,  and  the  money  owners  have  the  upper  hand  and 
feel  sure  of  it,  then  the  mad  rush  of  those  who  know  that  their 
capital  produces  a  demand  for  more  labor  than  is  available 
creates  bidding  for  it.  Stable  firms  whose  product  will  not 
stand  an  increase  in  price  go  to  the  wall.  Confidence  is  lost, 
credit  is  withdrawn,  and  the  circle  of  events  starts  all  over 
again.  Thus  far  in  human  experience  there  seems  to  be  no 
way  to  avoid  this  cycle.  Whatever  party  is  in  power  is  of 
course  controlled  by  human  beings  and  human  beings  nearly 
always  abuse  power. 

This  is  not  all  bad.  It  is  better  to  clean  house  occasionally 
than  to  live  always  in  the  accumulated  litter  of  years.  We 
wonder  how  long  it  will  be  before  we  learn  to  keep  the  house 
of  business  clean  day  by  day.  These  fluctuations  in  demand 
do  not  create  equal  or  even  similar  changes  in  the  supply. 

73 


—  74  — 

The  same  number  of  potential  workers  are  living  each  day 
without  regard  to  the  opportunities  for  them  to  labor. 

What  happens  to  those  whose  work  is  not  needed  by  capital 
in  dull  times?  Where  does  the  supply  come  from  in  flush 
times?  The  normal  division  of  workers  and  non-workers  in  the 
United  States  is  approximately  as  follows:  * 

Workers  Per  cent. 

Men 30 

Women    8 

Non-Workers 

Children  16  and  under 10 

Men  and  women  over  55 5 

Men  and  women  parasites 26 

Men  and  women  crippled  and  disabled 1 

Women  in  homes. .  20 


100 

When  times  are  dull  and  the  shops,  stores,  and  factories 
are  releasing  employees,  the  percentage  of  men  and  women 
working  decreases,  a  small  percentage  go  into  the  column  of 
parasites,  either  as  loafers,  going  to  school  (all  schools  gain 
some  from  this  cause  and  lose  others  for  causes  discussed  later) 
or  idling  at  home,  helping  mother,  etc.  A  few  women  marry 
for  a  home,  but  the  large  number  shift  about  from  one  job  to 
another  until  they  drive  out  the  least  firmly  attached  people, 
the  women  who  have  homes  but  who  work  casually. 

When  there  is  great  demand  for  labor  it  brings  out  all  these 
people  and  makes  additional  calls  on  the  parasitic  class,  takes 
many  children  from  school  and  to  a  small  extent  draws  on  the 
men  past  fifty-five  years  of  age  who  had  considered  them- 
selves beyond  employment.  There  are  two  exceptions: 
thrifty  people  take  advantage  of  flush  times  to  marry  because 
they  can  afford  it;  or  if  they  are  married  and  have  children, 
send  them  to  better  or  more  advanced  schools  because  they 
likewise  can  afford  it. 


lThe  accuracy  of  this  division  is  not  vouched  for  except  as  a  suitable  basis 
for  discussion. 


—  75  — 

Seemingly,  we  have  always  made  the  mistake  of  thinking 
of  the  labor  supply  as  something  tangible,  that  could  and 
should  be  stabilized  and  brought  to  rest.  We  are  learning 
now  to  think  of  it  as  a  stream,  flowing  sometimes  in  a  destruc- 
tive torrent,  sometimes  quiescent,  but  seldom  decaying  from 
stagnation.  Flow  is  necessary  and  desirable ;  without  it  prog- 
ress is  impossible,  but  the  flow  must  be  controlled  so  that  it 
will  not  work  harm  to  itself. 

Employers  are  unwittingly  as  much  the  case  of  violent 
movement  among  their  workers  as  the  employees  themselves. 
It  is  customary  to  blame  workers  for  undue  unrest  and  to 
assume  they  should  be  blind  and  deaf  to  the  frantic  appeals 
of  competitors  for  their  labor,  while  as  a  matter  of  fact  each 
employer  is  doing  the  same  thing  in  his  own  way.  Some  work 
quietly ;  others  with  large  advertisements  and  much  overstate- 
ment of  advantages  to  the  prospective  worker. 

It  has  always  been  our  custom  to  plant  a  new  industry 
at  a  point  selected  for  its  shipping  facilities,  raw  material  sup- 
ply, market,  etc.,  and  to  trust  to  luck  and  strong-arm  methods 
to  secure  the  necessary  workmen.  From  now  on  we  shall 
have  to  consider  the  labor  market,  for  labor  has  tasted  the 
raw  meat  of  power;  it  likes  the  taste  and  craves  more.  So 
we  have  to  consider  the  flow  of  labor  in  very  much  the  same 
way  as  we  do  friction,  very  valuable  when  we  want  to  put  on 
the  brakes,  and  a  hindrance  when  we  are  putting  on  all  steam 
to  go  ahead.  There  are  certain  fairly  definite  things  which 
tend  to  decrease  the  mobility  of  labor  which  we  sometimes 
wish  we  did  not  have  to  consider.  The  first  of  these,  and  the 
one  which  has  produced  the  greatest  trouble  when  overlooked, 
is  racial. 

We  have  before  us  every  moment  the  regret  for  having 
brought  in  the  negro  race,  quite  as  much  on  their  account 
as  our  own.  It  is  a  constant  warning  against  our  bringing  in 
the  yellow  races.  Any  race  with  whom  inter-marriage  is  pro- 
ductive of  questionable  results  must  sometimes  feel  that  we 
have  allowed  them  to  look  into  the  promised  land  and  then 
barred  the  way.  China  is  no  doubt  swarming  with  men  able 
to  do  much  of  the  work  which  we  have  wanted  done,  and 
willing  and  able  to  do  it  for  a  very  much  lower  wage  than  the 


—  76  — 

European  races.  It  would  be  easy  to  let  them  in,  but  past 
experience  shows  plainly  the  impossibility  of  sending  them 
back  when  the  need  is  over.  In  other  words,  they  do  not  add 
to  the  elasticity  of  the  labor  supply.  What  is  to  constitute 
the  final  solution  of  this  problem  is  difficult  to  imagine. 

The  problem  of  industry,  which  was  brought  to  the  front  by 
the  war,  is  how  to  get  the  purely  laboring  work  of  the  world 
done  when  opportunity  is  open  for  as  many  as  can  do  work 
involving  some  mental  action.  Our  industries  have  been  so 
reorganized  that  work  which  was  formerly  done  by  fairly 
skilled  labor  is  now  being  done  by  men  whom  we  formerly 
thought  capable  of  nothing  beyond  hewing  wood  and  drawing 
water.  This  so  depleted  the  ranks  of  the  purely  laboring 
classes  that  in  many  instances  it  was  necessary  to  pay  more 
for  unskilled  labor  than  for  skilled,  and  oftentimes  a  totally 
unskilled  man  pushed  his  income  above  that  of  many  pro- 
fessional men,  notably  teachers  and  ministers,  so  that  many 
of  the  latter  left  their  professions  and  became  actual  producers. 

Another  of  the  influences  preventing  the  desirable  flow  of 
labor  is  the  attachment  which  many  people  have  for  their 
homes.  The  great  influx  of  Europeans  which  preceded  the 
war  might  seem  to  indicate  that  no  great  attachment  influ- 
enced Europe;  but  the  quality  of  those  who  came  to  work 
compared  with  those  who  came  as  visitors  makes  it  necessary 
for  us  to  revise  our  estimate  of  the  European  population.  The 
very  type  which  would  have  made  us  the  best  workers  quite 
largely  stayed  at  home.  The  vigor  with  which  the  French 
and  Italians  and  the  other  invaded  nations  fought,  definitely 
determines  this  fact.  Even  in  our  country  we  have  to  realize 
that  there  are  large  colonies  of  certain  races  in  certain  cities 
who  are  little  disturbed  by  advertisements  for  "Help  Wanted" 
in  other  and  near-by  cities.  They  live  together,  work  together 
and,  if  they  move  at  all,  move  together. 

A  third  important  item  is  lack  of  versatility.  A  machinist 
or  a  shoe  worker  can  find  work  and  accomplish  as  much  in 
one  portion  of  the  country  as  another,  but  the  very  decided 
specialization  into  which  industry  has  developed  has  brought 
a  vast  number  of  men  and  women  into  our  industries  who 
know  only  enough  to  perform  a  single  operation,  and  that  only 


—  77  — 

when  the  machine  which  they  are  using  works  perfectly.  Such 
people  can  only  go  down  the  scale,  unless  money  is  expended 
to  teach  them  a  new  operation.  As  a  war  measure,  the  so- 
called  vestibule  school,  teaching  only  operations  and  not 
principles,  was  desirable  and  profitable  both  in  money  and 
results.  As  a  peace  measure  it  helps  to  steady  the  flow  from 
industry  to  industry,  but  it  also  greatly  adds  to  the  difficulty 
of  making  transfers  of  labor  in  the  interest  of  the  community 
as  a  whole. 

These  three  principal  obstacles  to  the  mobility  of  labor—- 
the race  problem,  the  love  of  home,  and  the  lack  of  versatility 
—add  to  the  difficulty  of  expanding  or  contracting  business. 
If  business  is  expanding  above  the  normal,  we  are  faced  with 
(1)  the  temptation  to  import  the  yellow  man,  (2)  the  fact 
that  the  better  class  of  workers  are  attached  to  a  home,  and 
prefer  demotion  to  change,  and  (3)  we  find  the  expense  of 
reeducating  large  numbers  of  employees  to  be  very  large.  If 
business  is  decreasing,  we  are  confronted  with  (1)  a  large  sup- 
ply of  people  whose  homes  in  foreign  lands  do  not  attract 
them  once  they  have  tasted  our  life,  (2)  those  who  own  or  are 
attached  to  their  homes  cannot  and  will  not  move  where  there 
are  better  opportunities,  and  (3)  those  who  have  learned  to 
do  only  one  thing  find  themselves  totally  unfitted  for  change. 
The  natural  result  is  unemployment  and  loss  in  purchasing 
power,  which  reacts  making  business  still  poorer  and  poorer, 
until  the  disease  has  run  its  course,  people  economize  and  we 
once  more  build  up  and  call  out  the  working  reserves. 

A  cure  for  this  lies  in  the  creation  of  a  large  reserve  of 
men  and  women  capable  of  doing  several  things,  capable  be- 
cause they  know  fundamental  principles.  Their  training  is 
the  duty  of  the  nation,  because  if  they  are  to  be  mobile  and 
able  to  equalize  working  conditions,  they  must  be  ready  to 
pass  state  borders  and  go  wherever  the  great  demand  exists. 
We  already  have  a  great  body  of  men  possessed  of  the  wander- 
lust who  may  seem  at  first  sight  to  fulfill  this  need,  but  such 
is  not  the  case  because  they  are  simply  travelers  going  from 
place  to  place  without  thought  of  shortage  of  labor,  to-day 
appearing  where  there  are  already  more  workers  than  can  be 
employed,  and  to-morrow  leaving  places  where  there  are  al- 


—  78  — 

most  none,  stopping  only  long  enough  to  accumulate  the  fare 
to  the  next  town,  and  with  no  regard  to  the  needs  of  the 
community  or  the  industry. 

We  need  a  "flying  squadron"  of  workers  who  would  corre- 
spond in  the  worker's  world  to  money  in  the  financial  world. 
A  few  mobile  and  controlled  people  could  steady  employment 
just  as  a  small  amount  of  real  money  serves  to  pay  the  bal- 
ances of  the  checks  sent  back  and  forth  between  banks.  There 
is,  however,  no  escape  for  the  shortage  of  unskilled  labor  except 
the  decrease  of  business,  if  we  stick  to  our  intent  to  leave  out 
the  yellow  races.  We  can  resort  to  high  wages  on  the  principle, 
not  usually  accepted  that  the  person  who  does  disagreeable 
things  should  be  paid  a  bonus  for  doing  them.  If  every- 
body worked  solely  for  the  love  of  work,  then  the  above  prin- 
ciple would  apply  and  the  president  of  the  company  would 
draw  the  smallest  salary;  but  only  recently  have  we  seen  any 
such  leaning,  and  that  only  to  a  limited  extent.  The  remain- 
ing alternative,  and  the  one  which  our  industrial  history 
indicates  to  be  most  successful,  is  to  do  away  with  the  necessity 
for  unskilled  labor. 

After  all,  our  most  expensive  work,  the  work  which  gives 
us  the  least  return  in  satisfaction,  is  the  lifting  and  carrying 
done  by  man  power.  Unloading  cars  of  coal  or  other  similar 
materials  by  shoveling  over  the  sides  seems  a  wilful  waste 
when  we  know  how  to  dump  them  by  machinery  which  only 
requires  the  release  of  a  lever  or  turning  a  switch.  One  man, 
who  may  very  well  be  a  cripple  in  many  ways,  can  do  the  work 
which  a  dozen  laborers  would  do.  It  seems  wrong  also  to  ask 
any  man  to  lift  burdens  which  might  be  raised  by  power ;  yet 
we  have  to  admit  that  for  some  time  to  come  we  will  have 
mental  defectives  who  seem  incapable  of  doing  work  which 
requires  mental  strength  above  the  lowest  order.  It  should  be 
possible,  however,  to  so  arrange  our  plants  that  the  percentage 
of  such  defectives  would  be  closely  related  to  the  purely  labor- 
ing work  to  be  done. 

Some  reader  may  be  impatient  and  say,  "Why  concern 
ourselves  about  the  world  supply  of  workers?  What  we  need 
is  more  people  to-morrow  in  our  own  plant."  While  this  is 
true,  no  one  should  make  plans  for  large  individual  expansion 


—  79  — 

of  production  until  he  has  given  careful  consideration  to  what 
would  happen  if  every  one  should  begin  to  expand  equally. 
We  ought  not  to  open  new  branches,  or  build  new  factories 
depending  on  deliberately  drawing  employees  away  from  other 
plants  near  or  far  away. 

It  is  hardly  conceivable  that  a  town  will  attempt  to  se- 
cure a  new  manufacturing  business  when  its  Board  of  Trade 
knows  that  its  population  is  very  nearly  100  per  cent  em- 
ployed. As  soon  as  the  new  shop  opens  its  doors,  natural 
curiosity  draws  many  workers  from  other  local  factories. 
These  people  for  the  most  part  are  those  who  are'  discon- 
tented and  men  whom  their  employers  can  profitably  release. 
Nevertheless,  it  immediately  raises  a  storm  of  protest  from  the 
older  shops,  who  accuse  the  new  shop  of  "stealing  help,"  so 
they  retaliate  by  deliberately  offering  inducements  for  some 
of  the  very  men  whose  absence  from  their  plants  was  profitable 
to  come  back.  This  goes  on  until  all  raise  their  rates  as  high 
as  they  dare,  about  which  time  a  supply  of  workers  begins  to 
flow  in  from  outside  towns  and  everybody  gets  all  the  men 
they  need  and  everybody  is  satisfied,  except  the  people  from 
the  outside  towns.  Inasmuch  as  the  employers  seldom  have 
any  means  of  knowing  where  their  men  go  when  they  leave, 
they  do  not  know  where  to  direct  their  complaints. 

The  fact  that  the  suffering  firm  is  not  able  to  protest  does 
not,  however,  make  it  right  for  some  one  else  to  offer  imagi- 
nary or  temporary  inducements  to  its  employees.  Such  re- 
movals of  men  from  one  city  to  another  only  cost  time  and 
money,  and  in  the  end  serve  no  useful  purpose.  Reprisals  are 
easy  and  frequent.  Such  reprisals  only  serve  to  create  wage 
conditions  that  are  unfortunate,  because  they  inflate  work- 
men's ideas  of  their  worth  and  get  them  into  habits  of  spend- 
ing more  than  they  earn,  which  habits  are  not  easily  dropped 
when  the  inevitable  deflation  of  business  comes. 

All  this  applies,  of  course,  to  the  artificial  bidding  up  of 
rates  and  not  to  rates  increased  to  correspond  with  increased 
earnings.  Just  so  long  as  employers  strive  to  induce  employees 
to  leave  each  other  for  money  consideration  rather  than  for 
better  opportunity,  we  shall  have  unrest,  discontent,  and  dis- 
trust. Men  who  have  worked  for  a  firm  for  several  years,  who 


—  80  — 

have  asked  for  higher  wages  and  been  refused,  cannot  help 
being  suspicious  when  under  such  conditions  they  find  other 
men  offered  10,  20,  or  50  per  cent  more  money  to  come  in  and 
work  beside  them. 

Since  in  the  end  expansion  of  business  as  a  whole  can  only 
be  accomplished  by  an  increased  amount  of  work  done,  there 
are  only  two  legitimate  ways  in  which  it  can  be  accomplished : 

(1)  By  bringing  out  labor  which  has  for  the  time  being  retired. 

(2)  By  each  individual  doing  more  work.    To  accomplish  the 
result  in  either  way  it  is  only  necessary  to  offer  better  oppor- 
tunity for  men  to  earn  money.    Every  increase  in  opportunity 
to  earn  draws  out  a  few  more  people  who  do  not  work  when 
wages  are  low,  because  they  work  so  slowly  as  to  create  an  un- 
due overhead  charge.    Every  increase  in  the  amount  of  work 
which  it  is  possible  to  place  before  workers  in  such  a  way  that 
they  can  accomplish  it  brings  added  production. 

Certain  types  of  people  when  offered  overtime  work  will 
overwork  until  they  are  worn  out.  These  same  people  offered 
larger  wages  for  a  given  amount  of  work  will  loaf  a  part  of 
the  time,  usually  enough  so  as  to  secure  about  one-half  the 
increase  in  wages.  For  example,  ship  riveters,  whose  wages 
went  up  during  the  war  from  about  35  cents  per  hour  to  70 
cents,  worked  about  two-thirds  to  three-fourths  of  the  week. 
The  wise  employer  sees  to  it  that  every  facility  is  offered  his 
employees  to  do  work  easily  and  effectively,  and  then  sees  that 
they  are  paid  in  proportion  to  the  work  accomplished.  Hours 
of  labor  are  not  so  important  as  the  question  of  how  tired  the 
workers  get  during  those  hours.  Men  get  tired  by  the  day. 
Their  daily  hours  should  be  such  that  with  the  facilities  of- 
fered them  they  can  surely  come  to  work  the  next  day  fully 
recuperated.  They  live  only  one  lifetime,  so  they  should  work 
so  as  to  accomplish  the  maximum  amount  of  work  for  that 
lifetime.  In  other  words,  it  is  a  mistake  to  ask  or  even  allow 
men  and  women  to  overwork  when  young,  since  it  may  so 
shorten  their  working  life  that  they  may  not  be  able  to  pro- 
duce more  than  a  small  fraction  of  what  they  should. 

Men  and  women  left  to  themselves  waste  time  in  false  mo- 
tions, but  they  waste  more  energy  in  awkward  motions  and  un- 
necessary handling  of  material.  For  example,  in  the  early 


—  81- 

stages  of  the  war  3-inch  Russian  shells  were  contracted  for  to 
such  close  dimension  specifications  that  they  could  only  be 
commercially  produced  by  grinding.  In  one  shop  they  were 
stood  on  end  on  the  floor  between  machines.  The  operator 
had  to  step  to  one  side,  pick  up  a  shell,  lift  it  to  its  place  in 
the  grinding  machine,  and  when  the  operation  which  took 
only  seconds  to  perform  was  done,  place  it  on  the  floor  at  the 
other  side,  taking  one  or  two  steps  to  do  so.  In  another  shop, 
narrow  benches  were  built  from  machine  to  machine  nearly 
on  a  level  with  the  centers,  and  the  shells  were  rolled  from 
machine  to  machine.  Each  worker  had  only  to  lift  the  shells 
an  inch  or  so,  could  stand  in  his  tracks  all  day  long  and  in- 
stead of  the  machine  standing  idle  nine-tenths  of  the  time,  it 
was  actually  grinding  about  seven-tenths  of  it.  In  other 
words,  the  second  shop  offered  its  workers  the  opportunity  to 
produce  seven  times  as  much  work  as  the  first. 

Men  undirected  will  more  often  than  not  do  their  work  in 
ways  which  produce  undue  and  unnecessary  tiredness.  Much 
of  this  can  be  remedied  by  study.  Not  necessarily  time  study, 
nor  motion  study,  but  study  to  see  whether  the  work  is  most 
easily  and  effectively  done  standing  or  sitting,  whether  changes 
in  lighting  help  or  hinder,  and  a  consideration  of  other  factors. 
Every  gain  in  the  ease  with  which  work  is  done,  every  gain 
in  handling  materials  by  power  rather  than  by  hand,  makes 
possible  either  longer  hours,  or  greater  production  during 
short  hours,  or  both.  Either,  gives  us  the  equivalent  of  a 
larger  working  population  without  the  added  expense  for  food, 
housing, .  clothing,  and  transportation  which  is  always  at- 
tendant on  the  transfer  of  people  from  place  to  place. 

From  the  purely  selfish  point  of  view  of  the  individual  em- 
ployer, it  would  seem  that  obtaining  these  gains  should  be  the 
first  expedient,  rather  than  the  hiring  in  of  more  employees. 
Profit  lies  in  the  saving  in  overhead  charges  by  reducing  the 
ratio  between  total  costs  and  labor  costs.  A  greater  profit 
may  also  be  in  the  better  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  workers. 
Wherever  one  may  go  he  always  finds  discontent  in  shops  that 
are  rapidly  increasing  their  numbers  by  bringing  in  new  and 
awkward  people,  whom  the  old  hands  have  to  train  and  who 
must  be  paid  the  same  as  the  experienced  men,  but  whose  early 


—  82  — 

earnings  are  obviously  much  less.  The  old  hands  cannot  be 
blamed  for  jealousy.  It  is  only  human  nature  to  resent  an- 
other's having  an  unearned  income  and  to  resent  being  asked 
to  teach  as  well  as  earn.  Hence  the  smaller  number  of  new 
people  have  to  be  brought  into  a  shop  the  better  the  feeling 
and  the  greater  the  production  per  dollar  of  payroll,  even 
though  the  actual  payroll,  through  overtime  and  high  wages, 
may  be  quite  large. 

If  all  these  efforts  to  do  away  with  the  need  of  labor  do  not 
provide  the  necessary  employees,  the  most  elastic  part  of  the 
working  population,  the  women,  should  be  appealed  to.  Dur- 
ing the  war  many  women  were  drawn  into  productive  work  by 
the  call  of  patriotism,  many  by  money,  and  probably  many 
more  through  just  plain  curiosity.  They  will  go  out  of  in- 
dustry through  the  reverse  process.  First  because  the  in- 
centive of  patriotism  and  the  need  for  their  work  appears  to 
pass;  second  because  their  curiosity  has  been  satisfied,  and 
last,  if  and  when  the  money  incentive  is  withdrawn.  Many 
however,  will  be  reluctant  to  give  up  the  independence  which 
they  have  acquired.  In  spite  of  all  that  has  been  said  about 
the  place  of  women  in  the  home,  and  the  need  of  the  home  in 
our  social  life,  women  have  had  the  short,  hard  end  of  it.  The 
saying  that  "Woman's  work  is  never  done"  is  only  too  true. 
There  seems  to  be  too  much  work  in  the  home  or  too  little. 
The  wives  of  well-to-do  men  find  life  a  burden  because  social 
ties,  so  strong  that  they  cannot  avoid  them,  take  up  all  their 
time  without  entertaining  them  or  proving  of  any  profit.  The 
wives  of  wage  earners  are  given  over  to  housekeeping,  the 
rearing  of  children,  and  soothing  a  more  or  less  tired  and  dis- 
couraged husband.  Now,  for  the  first  time  in  history  women 
have  been  accepted  as  wage  earners,  have  been  able  to  earn 
living  wages  by  manual  as  well  as  mental  effort.  They  know 
that  they  can  make  a  better  living  than  the  average  husband 
can  offer  them  as  their  share  of  his  earnings. 

Women  will  probably  be  for  some  time  our  greatest  elastic 
labor  force.  Men  must  work,  for  they  can  hardly  live  on  their 
wives  or  female  relatives.  Women  have  for  so  many  centuries 
either  lived  on  their  husbands  and  male  relatives,  or  else  been 
virtually  their  slaves,  that  they  accept  it  as  a  natural  condition. 


—  83  — 

The  new  idea  of  being  wage  earners  and  producers  is  to  them 
an  abnormal  one,  no  matter  how  desirable.  Women  accept 
working  conditions  as  they  may  be  in  shops  with  less  complaint 
than  men.  They  have  accepted  men  "for  better  or  for  worse" 
through  all  the  centuries  and  they  very  naturally,  having  so 
often  realized  the  worst,  expect  to  continue  to  receive  it  to 
some  extent. 

During  the  transition  stage  in  which  women  find  them- 
selves, they  will  doubtless  be  less  dependable  than  they  have 
been  or  will  be  later,  but  they  seem  to  be  the  one  logical  and 
numerous  source  of  supply  for  the  present.  Possibly  it  may 
happen  that  when  they  again  become  settled  in  their  own 
minds,  business  will  have  found  some  way  to  eliminate  the 
elasticity  whidh  seems  inseparable  from  our  present  methods. 

To  sum  up  the  situation :  We  have  had  a  shortage  of  labor 
so  long  that  the  memory  of  bread-lines  and  unemployment 
commissions  is  very  dim,  but  we  are  just  as  likely  to  have  them 
now  as  we  were  to  see  prosperity  then.  But  for  now,  what  are 
the  legitimate  ways  to  draw  men  and  women  to  the  employ- 
ment offices  of  industry?  WTe  have  tried  high  wages  and  we 
have  tried  short  hours.  Neither  method  does  any  good  be- 
cause each  only  tends  to  form  expensive  habits,  which  cannot 
be  realized  because  they  also  produce  high-living  costs.  The 
shops  which  have  maintained  high  daily  attendance  and  low 
labor  turnover  through  the  war  are  the  concerns  which  have 
followed  the  labor  market  rather  than  led  it,  and  who  have 
offered  their  employees  decent  working  conditions  and  the  fa- 
cilities for  earning  large  wages.  They  have  found  it  possible, 
by  the  investment  of  relatively  small  amounts  of  capital,  to 
employ  the  types  of  labor  that  do  exist,  and  to  keep  the  work 
flowing  to  them  as  rapidly  as  they  can  use  it.  They  have  found 
their  actual  cost  per  dollar  of  production  much  more  stable 
than  the  cost  of  living.  In  other  words,  they  have  placed  their 
men  in  a  position  to  earn  as  much  more  as  they  needed  to  cover 
that  high  cost. 


IF  a  supply  of  labor  can  be  assured  of  such  a  kind  and 
volume  so  that  some  choice  is  possible,  and  the  men  them- 
selves be  assured  of  equal  opportunity  to  secure  the  kind  of 
work  to  which  they  are  adapted,  the  next  problem  is  to  place 
them  in  their  best  niches  with  the  least  total  cost  to  the  com- 
munity and,  incidentally,  to  the  individual  employer. 

Many  plans  for  predicting  employers'  capabilities  have  been 
advanced.  We  have  had  psychological  and  physiological  tests 
which  have  been  industriously  promoted,  and  which  have  each 
had  some  following.  No  one  thing  that  is  before  us  could  so 
greatly  add  to  the  profits  of  business  as  the  proper  vocational 
guidance  of  men,  and  nothing  else  has  more  advantageous 
possibilities  for  the  employees.  It  would  seem  from  this  view- 
point that  any  method  of  selection  which  proved  even  moder- 
ately reliable  would  receive  immediate  recognition.  None  has 
however,  from  which  fact  we  may  safely  conclude  that  such  a 
system  is  yet  to  be  found.  But  there  are  a  few  things  which 
help  to  make  broad  divisions;  for  example,  all  employees 
may  be  divided  into  those  who  work  solely  with  their  muscles 
and  those  who  use  their  heads  to  help  their  hands.  The  first 
class  is  really  very  small.  They  are  subnormal  people,  de- 
fectives, who  are  not  dangerous  to  the  community  except  as 
they  propagate  their  kind.  They  are  incapable  of  more  than 
the  most  elementary  and  simple  reasoning  and  they  exist  by 
intuition  and  habit. 

All  the  rest  of  mankind  is  capable  of  being  taught  some- 
thing. They  are  capable  of  at  least  minor  success  in  some 
useful  work.  Some  of  the  limitations  which  we  have  thought 
positive  are  beginning  to  fade  away.  An  ear  for  music,  for- 

84 


—  85  — 

merly  thought  to  be  a  birthright,  can  be  cultivated.  The  voice 
can  be  cultivated.  A  few  are  colorblind,  but  nearly  every  one 
can  learn  something  of  colors.  A  few  are  naturally  mechani- 
cally inclined,  but  since  the  advent  of  the  automobile  many 
more  have  developed  mechanical  tastes  and  ability.  We  begin 
to  wonder  if  anything  is  impossible  to  the  normal  mind. 

If  this  is  so  why,  then,  have  we  so  many  industrial  misfits? 
Why  so  much  inefficiency?  The  answer  is  simple.  We  do  not 
teach  and  we  do  not  supervise.  One  principle  only  is  necessary 
to  determine  whether  a  worker  is  rightly  placed.  Does  he  enjoy 
his  work?  A  man  may  enjoy  his  work  if  he  likes  the  work  for 
what  it  will  bring  him  in  comforts  and  enjoyment  outside, 
but  he  cannot  continue  to  enjoy  it  year  after  year  unless  his 
heart  is  in  it,  and  he  can  see  that  he  is  accomplishing  something 
worth  while.  Whether  he  will  enjoy  doing  a  given  piece  of 
work  depends  on  whether  he  knows  how  to  do  it,  and  whether 
the  man  who  supervises  his  work  enthuses  him  with  the  need 
and  value  of  it.  Men  go  from  job  to  job,  trying  to  find  a  place 
where  they  can  work  in  comfort  and  harmony  and  have  a  suf- 
ficient income  to  live  like  their  fellows.  The  least  of  these  in 
the  long  run  is  money.  The  greatest  is  harmony,  by  which  the 
author  means  not  merely  lack  of  friction,  but  appreciation. 
If  employers  could  only  understand  that  appreciation  is  the 
best  agent  for  vocational  guidance  they  would  cease  finding 
fault  with  men  whose  conscientious  efforts  need  only  to  be 
better  direction. 

A  certain  school  of  educators  maintains  that  what  a  man 
learns  in  one  vocation  does  not  carry  over  into  another.  They 
believe  that  a  boy  brought  up  in  a  machine  shop  will  have  to 
learn  the  carpenter's  trade  from  the  beginning,  and  that  it  will 
take  him  just  as  long  to  do  it  as  though  he  had  never  worked 
at  any  trade.  This  is  likely  so  far  as  the  technical  details  pe- 
culiar to  the  first  trade  are  concerned,  but  fundamental  prin- 
ciples are  the  same  in  all  trades  and  those  a  man  can  take  with 
him  wherever  he  goes.  At  the  best,  however,  we  have  to  admit 
that  there  is  a  tremendous  loss  of  time  spent  in  learning  the 
purely  technical  details  of  trades  and  professions.  Not  many 
people  can  be  found,  especially  among  those  who  are  success- 
ful, who  have  not  spent  years  of  their  lives  learning  things  for 


—  86  — 

which  they  have  had  no  use  during  the  time  of  their  greatest 
success  and  prosperity. 

Experience,  however,  is  leading  some  to  think  that  the 
problem  of  vocational  guidance  is  not  so  much  a  function  of 
the  man  himself  as  of  the  environment  in  which  he  is  placed, 
the  personality  of  the  people  who  share  in  his  training,  and  the 
personality  of  the  men  with  whom  he  works.  In  other  words, 
there  is  a  growing  feeling  that  the  right  kind  of  a  teacher  and 
the  right  kind  of  a  supervisor  can  enthuse,  encourage,  and 
make  a  man  out  of  almost  any  worker  of  intelligence  along 
any  line  of  useful  endeavor. 

If  this  is  so,  why  have  we,  all  of  us,  fallen  down  so  obviously 
in  trying  to  do  this  very  thing?  We  have  made  no  scientific 
selections.  We  have  tried  to  run  our  shops  with  what  is  prac- 
tically "run  of  the  mine"  material,  and  while  we  have  kept 
the  shops  running  we  have  done  it  at  a  tremendous  cost.  There 
are  two  answers:  first,  we  have  not  encouraged  capable  men 
to  become  teachers  in  any  branch  of  our  training  program; 
second,  we  have  not  progressed  in  our  training  of  foremen, 
or  rather  we  have  not  yet  begun  to  train  them  at  all. 

We  have  some  most  excellent  teachers  and  we  have  some 
most  excellent  foremen,  but  neither  profession  pays  enough  so 
that  it  attracts  men  whose  family  ties  demand  that  they  earn 
substantial  salaries.  The  average  college  professor  is  paid  less 
than  a  machinist,  and  many  a  foreman  has  known  that  the 
majority  of  the  men  under  him  carried  home  on  payday  as 
much  or  more  money  than  he. 

It  is  more  important  that  all  this  should  be  changed  than 
it  is  that  men  should  be  measured  psychologically,  phrenologi- 
cally,  or  by  any  other  long-named  science.  It  should  be  pos- 
sible for  a  boy  to  get  enough  of  an  insight  into  various  occupa- 
tions which  are  open  to  him,  so  that  he  will  know  what  he 
likes,  and  then  it  should  be  possible  for  him  to  rather  gradu- 
ally specialize  in  that  direction,  first  having  a  thorough  founda- 
tion in  general  principles.  Our  public  schools  are  at  fault  in 
that  they  lose  sight  of  their  opportunity  to  teach  many  things 
at  once.  Their  textbooks  of  mathematics  employ  problems 
which  have  no  application  in  life  whatever,  where  they  might 
at  the  same  time  they  are  teaching  mathematics,  teach  busi- 


—  87  — 

ness  practices  and  the  fundamentals  of  science.  Physics  ir 
taught  without  realizing  that  its  only  excuse  is  in  its  applica- 
tions. So  we  might  go  through  the  whole  list  of  studies  which 
are  so  closely  intertwined  in  life  that  we  can  hardly  separate 
them,  but  which  professional  educators  have  dissected  and 
killed  at  one  stroke. 

Of  all  places  in  life  where  science  is  needed  the  job  of  fore- 
man has  been  the  least  affected.  To-day's  foreman  is  last 
year's  foreman  one  year  nearer  old  age.  The  new  blood  which 
has  been  brought  into  our  shops  has  made  some  progress  be- 
cause things  had  to  be  rushed  so  fast  that  the  older  men  did 
not  have  time  to  fill  them  with  the  prejudices  which  have  filled 
the  craft  for  generations.  The  great  majority  exercise  only 
authority.  Take  away  from  them  the  right  to  "fire  men"  out 
of  hand  and  they  are  lost  to  find  something  to  do.  The  ten- 
dency not  to  progress  has  made  it  necessary  to  supplement 
their  efforts  with  the  functional  foremen  and  other  people  who 
add  to  the  overhead  charges  without  increasing  production 
over  that  which  is  possible  without  them.  The  problem  of 
employment  then  consists  of  three  parts,  selection,  training, 
and  supervision,  none  of  which  is  as  yet  reduced  to  anything 
like  a  satisfactory  basis. 

Selection  can  only  be  done  along  broad  lines.  Any  one  who 
claims  to  be  able  to  distinguish  between  men  fitted  by  nature 
to  be  plumbers  and  those  fitted  for  steam  fitting,  or  between 
carpenters  and  cabinet  makers,  is  probably  mistaken.  Any 
employment  manager  who  keeps  records  of  the  industrial  his- 
tory of  the  men  who  come  to  him  realizes  that  men  do  work 
with  some  degree  of  success  at  a  number  of  very  diversified 
trades.  The  variety  is  so  great  that  no  law  can  be  discovered 
by  which  one  can  tell  what  trades  lead  to  what  others.  This 
only  goes  to  convince  us  that  most  men  can  be  trained  about 
equally  well  for  a  number  of  different  callings.  This  is  more 
pronounced  as  we  go  into  the  ranks  of  technical  graduates. 
There  we  find  men  graduated  as  chemists  who  are  now  work- 
ing as  mill  engineers,  and  civil  engineers  in  charge  of  manu- 
facturing plants. 

There  are  a  few  characteristics  which  determine  to  some 
extent  how  much  one  may  safely  spend  for  training  a  given 


—  88  — 

man.  If  he  has  constantly  roved  about,  unless  he  has  taken  a 
step  ahead  at  most  of  the  jobs,  he  is  likely  to  move  on  with  as 
little  thought,  to  be  carried  away  with  the  greenness  of  the 
grass  in  the  next  field.  There  is  always,  however,  the  chance 
that  he  may  stop  moving  at  the  next  job.  When  a  man  claims 
to  have  constantly  been  the  victim  of  unfair  tactics  he  may  be 
wrong  and  may  have  a  vivid  imagination.  On  the  other  hand 
he  ought  not  to  be  condemned  without  inquiry,  as  it  is  per- 
fectly possible  for  a  firm  to  misjudge  a  worker  and  lay  things 
to  him  with  which  he  had  nothing  to  do. 

Tactfulness  is  something  which  may  grow  with  maturity 
and  which  may  also  decrease  as  man  passes  his  zenith.  Tact 
is  not  needed  in  every  job.  Some  require  a  thick-skinned  man 
who  is  utterly  oblivious  that  he  has  offended,  because  that  is 
the  only  kind  who  can  stand  offensive  speech  from  the  other 
fellow.  It  is  a  quality  which  reflects  the  management,  how- 
ever, so  a  man  should  not  be  judged  lacking  in  tact  unless  he 
has  worked  under  the  influence  of  a  tactful  man. 

The  qualities  which  affect  the  rank  and  file  and  without 
which  workmen  are  unsatisfactory,  no  matter  how  much  they 
may  produce,  are  loyalty,  cooperative  spirit,  and  willingness  to 
work.  With  a  shop  full  of  loyal,  cooperating,  intelligently 
working  men  anything  can  be  accomplished.  It  is  usually  pos- 
sible to  make  a  shrewd  guess  as  to  these  qualities  in  a  short 
conversation.  If  a  man  claims  to  have  been  overworked  in  the 
last  few  places  where  he  has  worked,  to  have  been  given  more 
than  his  share  to  do,  and  would  not  j^o  back  to  work  for  any  of 
his  previous  employers,  there  is  serious  danger  that  he  will  not 
work  faithfully  for  the  new  concern  nor  will  he  work  with 
others,  and  he  will  probably  knock  the  concern  for  which  he  is 
working.  Almost  every  kind  of  blunder  and  unintentional 
error  can  be  forgiven  the  faithful  man  who  goes  about  his  work 
with  serious  intent.  The  man  who  conceives  that  the  world 
owes  him  a  living  and  who  intends  to  give  as  little  labor  as 
possible  in  return  for  what  he  gets  is  a  burden  on  the  com- 
munity and  a  source  of  discontent  in  the  shop  or  office.  He 
corresponds  to  the  merchant  or  manufacturer  who  gives  as  near 
short  weight  as  he  dares,  and  misrepresents  values.  He  tends 
to  hurt  all  the  rest  of  the  people  in  the  same  business.  A  little 


—  89  — 

talk  with  a  man  will  disclose  any  such  tendency,  if  the  conver- 
sation turns  naturally  on  the  reasons  why  he  has  left  previous 
jobs.  A  man  of  that  type  cannot  help  airing  his  ideas. 

If  there  is  a  sufficient  supply  of  men  to  cover  the  needs 
for  intelligent  workers  after  eliminating  the  purely  manual 
type  and  the  men  who  do  not  intend  to  work,  the  process  of 
selection  seems  at  present  to  be  limited  to  placing  men  on  the 
kind  of  jobs  at  which  they  have  had  the  most  experience,  or 
the  nearest  to  the  kind  of  experience  which  the  new  job  re- 
quires, and  then  training  them  for  that  work.  Of  course,  if  a 
man  has  a  deep  rooted  aversion  to  the  kind  of  work  which 
must  be  done  it  is  not  wise  to  induce  him  to  take  up  with  it 
by  offering  high  wages.  He  soon  gets  used  to  it  and  puffed 
up  with  the  importance  which  entitles  him  to  the  larger  pay 
and  demands  more.  If  the  man  for  whom  he  is  to  work  cannot 
sell  him  the  job  by  convincing  him  that  it  is  a  really  good  job 
he  had  best  pass  it  up.  It  does  not  pay  to  sell  a  man  a  job 
that  he  does  not  want  just  because  the  salesman  can  do  it, 
any  more  than  it  pays  to  sell  a  man  a  pair  of  shoes  too  tight 
for  his  comfort. 

However,  a  man  who  really  knows  almost  any  trade  and 
who  is  able  to  present  his  ideas  clearly  can  convince  most  men 
that  it  is  a  good  trade  to  learn,  especially  if  the  shop  will  pay 
wages  nearly  equal  to  full  pay  while  he  is  learning  it.  This  is 
because  most  trades  are  good  trades,  and  because  most  men  can 
be  moderately  successful  barring  disabilities  which  affect  one 
trade  more  than  another,  in  any  of  them.  Most  of  the  occupa- 
tions can  be  made  attractive,  and  in  most  of  them  a  man  with 
a  disposition  to  be  happy  can  be. 

Happiness  on  the  job  is  not  necessarily  governed  by  the 
job.  If  no  one  is  allowed  to  go  on  a  given  job  except  those  of 
a  sunny  disposition,  the  chances  are  that  all  will  remain  happy, 
and  the  job  will  acquire  a  reputation  for  being  a  good  one. 
One  grouch,  however,  will  ruin  an  otherwise  perfectly  good 
job.  If  this  grouch  happens  to  be  the  foreman  it  may  cost 
the  firm  much  more  than  it  would  to  pay  him  a  pension  and 
replace  him  with  a  man  who  can  see  the  bright  side  of  things. 
The  old  idea  that  so  long  as  an  employee  did  his  work  well  it 
could  make  no  difference  to  his  employer  what  his  habits  were, 


—  00  — 

nor  whether  he  was  sour  or  not,  has  had  its  day.  We  are  none 
of  us  so  strong  but  that  we  sooner  or  later  reflect  our  surround- 
ings. A  man  who  is  not  cheerful  is  sick,  physically  or  mentally, 
and  should  be  cured  before  he  is  allowed  to  communicate  the 
disease  to  others. 

Other  elements  which  help  to  make  a  job  a  good  one  in  the 
estimation  of  workers,  are  whether  the  sanitary  surroundings 
are  good,  even  temperature,  not  too  cold  in  the  winter,  and 
even  more  important  not  too  hot  in  the  summer,  not  too  heavy 
work  in  handling  the  materials  used,  only  a  reasonable  amount 
of  walking,  little  stair  climbing.  In  other  words,  physical  com- 
fort and  work  which  does  not  require  physical  exhaustion  be- 
fore night.  Add  these  conditions  to  readiness  of  access  to  the 
plant  from  home  and  the  cheerfulness  referred  to  above  the 
jobs  which  are  offered  become  attractive  to  most  men,  provided 
they  are  given  a  reasonable  amount  of  conscientious  training 
before  they  are  expected  to  make  good. 

The  problem  of  training  in  itself  is  one  of  considerable  mag- 
nitude, especially  from  a  money  point  of  view.  If  every  shop 
kept  accurate  information  as  to  the  cost  of  training  its  work- 
ers, including  wages  paid  and  not  earned,  work  spoiled  in  pro- 
cess, damage  to  machinery  and  tools,  loss  of  production,  etc., 
they  would  immediately  quit  promiscuous  hiring  and  give 
to  the  serious  consideration  of  some  highly-paid  expert  in 
the  business  the  task  of  securing  a  working  body  of  men  who 
were  convinced  by  something  more  than  words  that  it  would 
be  made  worth  their  while  to  stick  to  the  firm.  When  there 
is  a  labor  turnover  of  100  per  cent  or  more,  and  that  is  a 
very  creditable  showing,  the  shop  ceases  to  be  a  productive 
plant  and  turns  into  a  very  inefficient  educational  institution. 
That  is,  it  has  the  aims  of  a  manufacturing  plant  and  the 
methods  of  a  school.  Where  the  average  man  stays  one  year 
or  less  everybody  is  in  training  all  the  time,  the  graduates  go 
to  work  in  some  other  plant  where  they  go  through  this  same 
process  of  training  for  still  another  job. 

Finally  the  selecting  and  placing  of  workers  involves  a 
physical  examination,  but  a  physical  examination  which  at- 
tempts only  to  eliminate  men ;  to  select  the  physically  perfect 
would  leave  very  little  for  the  employment  department  to  do, 


—  91  — 

for  the  early  experience  in  recruiting  the  army  indicates  that 
physically  perfect  men  are  very  few  in  number.  Later  ex- 
perience shows  that  most  physical  defects  can  be  cured,  or 
else  can  be  so  offset  by  the  work  offered  that  they  do  not  count 
severely.  Men  with  weak  hearts  are  probably  not  much 
greater  risks  than  men  who  may  develop  them  later.  That  is, 
knowledge  that  one  has  a  weakness  and  knowledge  of  how 
to  watch  out  for  it  is  safer  than  the  assumption  that  one  is 
perfectly  strong.  The  true  reason  for  a  physical  examination 
is  to  make  sure  that  men  are  placed  where  they  will  not  be  a 
menace  to  themselves  or  to  others.  Of  course,  those  with  con- 
tagious diseases  should  not  be  allowed  to  mingle  with  the 
crowd  in  or  out  of  a  shop.  So  long  as  public  health  authorities 
permit  it,  the  shop  serves  itself  and  its  other  employees  if  it 
puts  up  the  barrier.  Other  ailments,  and  just  now  especially 
the  disabilities  brought  on  by  war,  should  not  bar  any  man 
from  earning  a  living  but  should  make  us  all  the  more  keen  to 
find  a  way  to  place  them  where  they  may  earn  the  maximum 
wages.  This  is  in  no  sense  charity,  it  is  only  partial  pay- 
ment in  a  very  limited  sense  for  what  they  have  done  for  the 
world.  We  should  not  allow  our  sentiment  for  the  wounded 
soldier  or  sailor  to  let  us  overlook  the  industrial  cripple  who 
is  as  much  the  victim  of  the  present  social  order  as  the  soldier. 
He  is  as  truly  sacrificed  to  our  necessities,  but  not  in  as  spec- 
tacular a  way. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  UNEMPLOYED  WORKMAN 

THE  larger  and  more  spectacular  forms  of  unemployment, 
due  to  fluctuations  in  business  and  periodic  hard  times, 
occupy  such  a  large  part  of  our  attention  that  we  are  very  apt 
to  overlook  the  daily  and  weekly  problems  attendant  on  the 
ordinary  course  of  the  flow  of  labor.  We  have  seen  men 
out  of  work  and  their  families  in  want,  and  although  we  see 
the  economic  waste  of  it  all,  as  well  as  the  suffering,  we  are 
compelled  to  acknowledge  that  the  employment  departments 
in  our  shops  can  do  little  to  alter  the  conditions.  Our  em- 
ployment departments  can,  however,  through  the  efforts  of 
its  individual  members,  avoid  participation  in  the  extrava- 
gances which  cause  hard  times.  This  is  very  difficult  to  do, 
and  we  should  not  be  too  severe  on  those  who  find  themselves 
unable  to  battle  against  the  current  of  opinion  of  their  friends 
and  neighbors.  Men,  and  especially  women,  will  always  de- 
mand these  things  which  they  feel  essential  to  their  status  in 
life.  In  fact,  most  of  us  not  only  demand  certain  things  to 
satisfy  our  pride  in  the  community  in  which  we  live,  but  also 
to  hold  our  very  jobs,  for  unless  we  live  in  a  certain  style  our 
employers  may  think  that  we  do  not  appear  well  enough  to 
represent  them  and  so  they  will  hire  others.  We  all  know 
that  we  are  "riding  for  a  fall"  but  sometimes  we  seem  power- 
less to  prevent  it. 

Nothing  short  of  general  education  of  every  one  will  stop 
these  periods  of  speculation  and  high  living.  Employment 
managers  may  "sweat  blood"  trying  to  make  jobs  where  none 
exist,  by  cutting  down  hours  and  days  of  work,  and  by  dis- 
tributing the  work  among  a  larger  number  of  men,  but  that  is 
only  treating  symptoms  and  not  striking  at  the  root  of  the 

92 


—  93  — 

disease.  Then  again  a  great  many  of  our  modern  habits  tend 
to  remove  us  from  the  need  of  personal  thrift  as  they  sub- 
stitute community  thrift.  For  instance,  we  insure  our  lives 
instead  of  putting  money  in  the  bank.  The  lottery  element  in 
insurance  appeals  to  us.  We  buy  land  and  create  public  parks 
and  live  in  a  flat.  In  fact,  we  have  many  habits  which  we  pay 
for  in  taxes,  thereby  letting  our  more  fortunate  neighbors 
"hold  the  bag."  The  old  thrifty  way  was  for  every  one  to 
acquire  supplies  of  food  and  clothes  against  a  rainy  day,  but 
by  so  doing  the  interest  on  the  money  invested  was  lost.  Just 
now  we  seem  to  be  in  a  transition  stage  where  the  great  profit 
is  to  the  man  who  accumulates  any  of  the  necessities  of  life, 
corners  the  supply,  and  then  profits  by  our  needs.  When  that 
stage  is  past  and  the  man  who  withholds  necessities  from  the 
market  must  have  a  government  permit  to  do  so,  we  may  then 
be  free  from  these  spasms  of  wealth  and  poverty.  That,  how- 
ever, will  likely  require  years  of  bitter  experience. 

The  favorite  kind  of  employment  improvement  just  now 
seems  to  be  that  due  to  seasonal  employment,  but  as  long  as 
there  are  seasons  of  the  year  there  must  of  necessity  be  sea- 
sonal jobs.  Years  ago  a  man  who  owned  a  farm  expected  to 
raise  enough  so  that  he  and  all  his  family  and  hired  men 
could  live  on  it  all  winter.  No  other  way  occurred  to  him. 
His  men  worked  for  him  all  summer;  why  should  he  not  be 
charged  with  their  support  all  winter?  Now  the  farmer  lets 
his  extra  help  go  as  soon  as  the  rush  season  is  over.  He  is  still 
under  the  legal  necessity  of  supporting  his  wife  and  children, 
but  the  moral  obligation  toward  his  help  has  vanished.  He 
does  not  even  trouble  himself  as  to  where  they  go  or  how  they 
live.  In  fact,  he  does  not  even  know  whether  they  survive  the 
winter.  The  same  transition  has  taken  place  in  nearly  every 
seasonal  occupation.  It  must  be  said,  however,  that  the  new 
conception  represents  a  decreasing  amount  of  paternalism. 
Under  the  old  idea  that  it  was  the  employer's  duty  to  support 
his  workers  during  periods  of  enforced  idleness,  it  was  also  as- 
sumed that  he  could  control  the  movement  and  dictate  the 
way  of  living  of  these  men.  This  was  all  very  kindly  and 
benevolent,  but  it  had  the  effect  of  making  the  workers  less 
independent.  Certainly  the  man  who  accepts  a  job  knowing 


—  94  — 

that  it  is  for  the  season  only,  and  who  makes  provision  out  of 
the  returns  from  the  job  for  the  period  in  which  he  may  be 
idle,  is  far  more  independent  than  if  he  curled  up  by  the  chim- 
ney to  let  the  winter  blow  by.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  learns 
another  vocation  so  that  he  may  quickly  find  and  begin  other 
work,  as  soon  as  he  is  through  with  the  first  job,  then  he  is 
worth  just  that  much  more  to  himself  and  to  the  community. 

It  is  in  such  cases  as  this  that  the  employment  manager 
has  his  best  opportunity  to  help.  He  can  study  the  seasonal 
occupations  in  his  vicinity  and  make  provision  to  take  on 
house  painters  and  other  outdoor  workers  in  the  fall,  and  in 
the  spring  the  wood  choppers  who  are  just  emerging  from 
the  backwoods.  If  his  shop  is  running  on  seasonal  lines  he 
can  also  plan  to  hire  men  from  other  seasonal  lines  rather 
than  get  them  exclusively  from  other  and  competing  shops. 
Of  course,  some  of  these  men  must  be  given  considerable  train- 
ing which  appears  wasted  when  after  six  months  they  disap- 
pear, but  if  they  have  been  properly  impressed  they  will  be 
back  again  another  year.  It  may  seem  like  "carrying  coals 
to  Newcastle"  to  suggest  teaching  men  additional  trades  or 
vocations  when  so  many  of  them  will  confess  to  having  al- 
ready worked  at  a  dozen  or  more,  but  the  great  trouble  is  that 
these  men  have  not  really  learned  any  trade.  Their  experi- 
ence in  these  many 'lines  is  not  planned;  it  is  accidental. 

Sometimes  the  efforts  of  the  employer  to  stabilize  employ- 
ment in  his  own  shops  are  well  meant  but  not  effective.  A 
manufacturer  of  straw  hats,  for  example,  thought  it  would 
be  wise  to  put  in  a  line  of  felt  hats  so  as  to  "round  out  the 
year."  The  proposition  was  perfectly  logical.  The  straw  hat 
season 'has  very  definite  times  of  "beginning  and  ending.  Felt 
hats  are  worn  the  rest  of  the  year.  The  times  of  purchase  are 
well  known.  And  a  hat  is  a  hat.  His  employees  for  the 
most  part  were  Nova  Scotians  who  came  down  each  fall  and 
worked  through  the  winter.  They  did  not  take  kindly  to 
the  idea  of  learning  the  making  of  felt  hats.  They  had  de- 
veloped a  habit  of  spending  their  winters  in  a  climate  that 
was  slightly  less  objectionable  than  their  own,  they  made  good 
money,  but  they  preferred,  perhaps  very  prosaically,  to  go 
back  where  their  winter's  saving  would  make  them  rich  for 


95 

the  summer,  and  where  their  labor  consisted  chiefly  in  rais- 
ing a  few  vegetables.  They  had  developed  a  philosophy  of 
life  that  to  them  was  ideal.  They  did  not  want  anything 
better  and  so  quite  naturally  they  did  not  favor  the  new  idea. 

Such  instances  may  be  multiplied  but  nevertheless  it  is 
not  unwise  fcr  a  man  to  have  two  strings  to  his  bow.  It 
stabilizes  employment  during  the  season.  Men  who  expect  to 
leave  a  given  job  at  a  definite  date  do  not  usually  leave  it  until 
that  time.  Nor  do  they  leave  one  shop  and  go  to  another  in 
the  same  line.  Present  methods  of  computing  labor  turn- 
over, however,  penalize  the  employment  office  in  a  shop  which 
only  expects  to  operate  at  full  force  a  part  of  the  year.  If 
two  shops,  each  employing  a  force  for  six  months  in  the  year, 
would  consolidate,  it  would  immediately  appear  that  the 
labor  turnover  of  the  combined  plant  was  a  hundred  per  cent 
lower  than  the  average  of  the  two.  The  large  problem  seems 
to  be,  however,  not  to  entirely  remove  seasonal  occupations, 
but  to  arrange  them  so  that  the  seasons  will  meet  without  too 
long  a  vacation  between.  Public  employment  agencies  can, 
if  they  will,  do  a  great  deal  to  help  this  situation.  Theirs  is 
a  neutral  position  and  they  should  know  and  be  able  to  di- 
rect men  to  other  places  where  employment  is  likely.  Many 
firms  would  be  glad  to  start  their  seasons  a  week  or  two  weeks 
earlier  than  they  otherwise  would  if  they  could  be  sure  of 
securing  men  before  they  had  an  opportunity  for  a  "general 
good  time,"  with  its  attendant  loss  of  morale. 

It  should  constantly  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  reduction 
of  labor  turnover  has  its  disadvantages  in  that  it  makes  it  dif- 
ficult for  a  man  to  get  a  job.  When  a  firm  with  a  thousand 
employees  finds  it  necessary  to  hire  five  thousand  men  in  the 
course  of  a  year  to  maintain  its  working  force  it  cannot  stop 
to  be  too  particular  in  its  selection  of  men,  but  let  that  labor 
turnover  be  cut  down  so  that  it  requires  only  five  hundred, 
which  is  entirely  within  the  possibilities,  and  the  man  who  is 
out  and  is  looking  for  work  has  less  than  one-tenth  the  chance 
of  finding  a  job  than  he  did  before.  To  be  sure  there  are  not 
so  many  other  men  looking  for  these  jobs,  but  there  are  a 
great  many  men  who  are  by  no  means  first  choice  men,  and 
who  will  thus  be  obliged  to  wait  weeks  in  idleness. 


WHENEVER  a  factory  produces  more  goods  than  its  cus- 
tomers can  purchase  it  turns  to  advertising  and  sends 
out  salesmen.  Similarly  when  a  shop  requires  more  or  better 
help  than  come  to  its  doors  it  likewise  advertises  and  sends 
out  scouts.  The  sale  of  goods  has  been  quite  thoroughly  re- 
duced to  known  and  agreed  principles  through  long  years  of 
experience,  but  employment  managers  have  yet  to  come  to  a 
similar  understanding  regarding  labor,  for  at  present  the  only 
idea  seems  to  be  to  get  the  men,  and  any  way  is  deemed  right 
so  long  as  it  accomplishes  its  purpose.  It  is  of  course  legiti- 
mate to  advertise  for  men  and  to  send  out  scouts  to  secure 
them,  provided  that  by  so  doing  no  one  is  injured.  In  other 
words,  we  have  a  right  to  do  as  we  please  so  long  as  we  harm 
no  one  else,  but  when  we  do,  then  there  must  be  a  compro- 
mise. Employers  soon  recognize  this  within  the  limits  of 
their  own  town,  for  they  usually  make  agreements  that  they 
will  not  hire  from  each  other.  And  yet,  if  these  agreements 
were  strictly  adhered  to  it  would  be  unjust  to  the  employees, 
but  since  they  are  not  it  helps  to  steady  the  situation  even 
though  it  may  not  cure  it. 

When  such  an  agreement  is  made  the  employment  man- 
ager naturally  turns  to  other  towns  for  his  help,  and  prefer- 
ably far  away,  so  that  the  news  of  his  advertising  will  not 
reach  his  home  town.  The  great  danger  is  of  course  that  men 
who  would  otherwise  be  contented  and  happy  will  read  into 
these  advertisements  much  more  than  is  there.  They  rea- 
son that  if  the  Jones  Manufacturing  Company  advertises  for 
help  it  must  be  because  they  need  help  very  badly  and  so  will 
expect  to  pay  higher  wages  to  get  them.  Accordingly  the 

96 


97 

workmen  either  go  and  inquire  the  new  rates  and  then  return 
to  see  if  their  own  concern  will  not  give  them  the  same,  or 
else  they  go  and  hire  out  at  the  new  rate,  thereby  cutting  off 
their  connections  and  any  prospects  for  promotion  that  may 
have  been  theirs.  Very  often,  however,  these  advertisements 
do  offer  exactly  the  opportunity  which  the  men  are  seeking 
as  not  very  many  concerns  spend  money  for  advertising  of  this 
kind  unless  they  are  desperately  in  need  of  help. 

This  increase  of  pay,  through  competition  which  may  be 
only  local,  is  not  healthy  for  either  party.  It  puts  a  premium 
on  constant  shifting  about  and  does  not  help  the  shops  to 
maintain  a  constant  working  force.  It  also  tends  to  divert 
the  attention  of  workmen  from  their  work  and  in  a  way  to 
make  speculators  of  them,  and  speculation  in  jobs  is  just  as 
demoralizing  as  speculation  in  stocks.  Any  man  who  is  con- 
vinced that  he  is  working  in  a  rising  market  and  that  the  way 
to  get  the  top  price  is  to  work  a  few  weeks  in  a  shop  and  then 
leave  for  a  small  raise,  and  do  the  same  a  second  and  third,  and 
even  a  fourth  time,  has  very  little  interest  in  the  shops  he  is 
using  as  stepping  stones,  and  by  the  time  he  has  reached  the 
top  he  is  confronted  by  a  falling  market  and  nothing  to  show 
for  it  but  disappointment.  This  is  entirely  apart  from  legiti- 
mate increases  in  pay  because  of  a  depreciation  in  currency, 
or  increase  in  the  workman's  earning  power,  for  the  wise  firm 
sees  to  it  that  such  advances  are  made  without  waiting  for 
the  man  to  come  and  ask  for  them. 

Increasing  rates  to  attract  men  is  very  much  like  cutting 
prices  to  attract  trade,  and  that  is  a  discredited  method.  Ac- 
cordingly we  will  surely  find  this  bidding  for  help  discred- 
ited, but  we  must  not  fail  to  note  that  it  has  an  advantage 
for  the  employee  as  he  thus  knows  the  state  of  the  labor  mar- 
ket. Men  should  also  be  able  to  find  out  where  there  are 
vacancies  without  going  to  employment  agencies,  for  as  a 
matter  of  fact  all  that  the  private  agency  has  to  sell  is  inside 
information  as  to  where  there  is  need  of  help,  and,  unfortu- 
nately, it  sometimes  happens  that  the  information  which  they 
do  sell  is  not  correct.  It  is  better  for  a  man  to  learn  of  ex- 
isting vacancies  directly  from  the  company  which  offers  the 
jobs  than  it  is  for  him  to  obtain  his  information  incorrectly 


—  98  — 

through  rumors  that  have  reached  an  employment  agency,  or 
through  statements  given  out  by  a  foreman  who  only  judges 
the  whole  plant  from  his  own  little  department.  Men  should 
certainly  not  be  left  to  find  jobs  by  chance  and  the  employee 
who  takes  Monday  morning  off  to  go  "shopping"  for  a  job 
should  not  be  any  more  likely  to  find  one  than  the  man  who 
sticks  to  his  job  and  sends  a  letter  of  application,  yet  the  man 
who  goes  is  much  more  likely  to  land  the  job. 

If  every  one  advertised  their  needs  day  after  day  and  did 
not  use  display  advertisements  men  would  soon  learn  to  de- 
pend upon  advertisements  and  consequently  neglect  the  pri- 
vate agencies.  In  fact,  the  keynote  to  the  whole  difficulty  is 
the  competition  of  size  and  display  of  advertisements.  It  is 
good  publicity  to  use  large  advertisements  but  it  is  poor  psy- 
chology. It  is  also  poor  business,  for  the  large  display  ad- 
vertisements which  appeared  during  war  time,  and  some  of 
which  are  still  appearing,  are  not  so  expensive  but  that  most 
concerns  can  employ  them  if  necessary.  A  six-inch  advertise- 
ment is  lost  just  as  much  among  a  number  of  others  of  the 
same  size  as  a  half-inch  advertisement  is  among  others  of  its 
kind.  The  best  suggestion  that  can  probably  be  made  is  to 
encourage  advertising,  but  to  limit  it  to  the  standard  small 
type  of  the  undisplayed  advertising  column,  and  provided 
every  one  can  be  persuaded  to  do  the  same,  this  gives  every 
one  the  same  chance.  If  advertising  is  generally  used  it  will 
also  save  much  loss  of  time  by  men  traveling  to  places  which 
require  no  help  and  being  turned  away  without  a  job,  when 
the  next  shop  up  the  street  may  need  them. 

It  is  wise  to  avoid  advertising  rates  of  pay  and  if  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  the  rates  should  not  be  fixed  before 
the  man  is  seen.  It  may  be  necessary,  and  it  is  unfortunately 
the  practice  in  many  shops,  that  rates  of  pay  should  be  set 
for  the  job  and  not  for  the  man.  This  of  course  refers  to 
hourly  or  daily  rates,  for  there  are  always  men  capable  of 
earning  wages  greatly  in  excess  of  the  standard  rate  of  the 
community  and  usually  these  men  do  not  apply  for  jobs  where 
the  rate  is  advertised. 

Then  there  are  men  who  would  never  know  what  rate  to 
demand  were  it  not  for  the  advertisement,  men  who  never 


—  99  — 

drew  the  advertised  rate  in  their  lives,  and  many  of  whom 
never  even  did  that  particular  kind  of  work.  These  men  for 
a  time  at  least  profit  by  the  advertised  rate.  Above  all,  how- 
ever, advertising  the  rates  starts  bidding.  Just  as  soon  as  one 
shop  offers  a  slightly  higher  rate  for  ordinary  labor  than  a 
competitor,  and  it  becomes  known,  some  other  shop  will  out- 
bid it,  from  spite  if  nothing  else,  and  then  a  war  is  on  from 
which  no  one  makes  a  permanent  gain.  If  an  understanding 
could  be  reached  by  which  men  would  not  be  given  a  higher 
starting  rate  than  the  one  they  last  received,  and  their  wages 
were  then  readjusted  according  to  their  earnings  after  three 
or  six  months  of  experience,  undoubtedly  there  would  be  much 
less  stealing  of  help  and  a  great  deal  more  satisfaction.  Such 
a  plan  would  put  it  up  to  the  man  to  make  good,  and  after 
that  if  a  raise  were  given  often  enough  to  those  who  do  show 
signs  of  progress  there  should  be  no  trouble  holding  them. 

All  advertising  and  all  scouting  should  be  done  on  the  basis 
of  the  most  complete  publicity  of  opportunities  and  the  least 
danger  of  misrepresentation.  There  should  be  no  artificial 
barriers  to  prevent  men  changing  jobs,  but  there  should  be 
every  precaution  that  men  do  not  change  under  a  misappre- 
hension. The  idea  that  men  who  work  for  a  concern  thereby 
become  in  some  way  a  part  of  the  shop  should  not  obtain,  ex- 
cept as  they  are  attracted  to  the  shop  and  urged  to  stay  by 
legitimate  methods,  for  a  shop  which  tries  to  prevent  its  em- 
ployees getting  other  jobs  is  bound  to  lose  out  in  the  long  run. 

In  this  same  connection  there  is  great  danger,  in  fact  even 
greater  than  in  the  case  of  advertising,  that  the  scout  system 
will  work  injury,  for  when  the  employment  department  is 
pressed  for  help  to  the  point  of  desperation  it  may  throw  eth- 
ics to  the  winds  and  resort  to  any  means  to  get  the  requisite 
numbers.  The  management  very  likely  will  lay  down  certain 
principles,  including  an  injunction  against  stealing  help  from 
others.  The  employment  manager  knows,  however,  that  all 
the  capable  men  have  jobs  in  normal  times  and  in  abnormal 
times  he  is  doubly  sure  that  every  one  fit  to  do  the  work  has 
a  job.  Therefore,  if  he  hires  any  one  at  all  he  is  likely  to  be 
accused  of  stealing  and  since  he  is  to  have  the  name  of  thief 
he  thinks  he  might  as  well  get  whatever  credit  there  is  at- 


—  100  — 

tached  to  furnishing  an  adequate  labor  supply  and  so  he  pre- 
pares to  steal  where  the  stealing  is  easiest  and  there  is  the  least 
danger  of  its  being  reported  to  his  concern. 

For  this  purpose  he  sends  out  scouts  to  distant  points  not 
where  business  is  bad  but  rather  where  it  is  good.  He  in- 
structs these  scouts  that  they  are  not  to  hire  any  one  who  is 
working  but  only  men  who  have  left  their  jobs  and  who  have 
decided  to  leave  town  in  any  event.  The  scout  works  on  this 
highly  altruistic  plan  about  one  day.  Then  he  writes  his  chief 
a  doleful  letter  and  says  there  are  no  men  to  be  had,  but  when 
in  reply  he  receives  a  telegram  saying  that  what  is  wanted  is 
men  and  not  letters  and  for  him  to  get  men  or  quit,  he  then 
throws  whatever  ethics  he  has  to  the  winds  and  he  hires  men. 
In  fact  he  almost  shanghaies  them.  He  makes  promises  he 
knows  will  not  be  kept,  and  he  signs  them  up.  He  advertises 
that  Mr.  Brown  or  Mr.  Smith  will  be  at  the  Eagle  Hotel  on 
such  and  such  a  day  to  hire  the  men.  He  dares  not  let  it  be 
known  for  whom  he  is  hiring  for  fear  a  telegram  to  the  big 
boss  would  result  in  his  being  fired  at  once.  If  men  are  not 
disgruntled  he  makes  them  so.  He  tells  them  that  since  slave 
days  no  one  has  worked  for  such  poor  pay,  or  under  such 
"rotten"  conditions  as  they,  and  he  paints  for  them  a  sort  of 
heaven  on  earth,  with  nothing  much  to  do  except  spend  the 
heat  of  the  day  under  an  electric  fan,  occasionally  feeding  a 
machine.  He  even  buys  their  tickets  and  ships  them  to  his 
home  town  and  the  only  redeeming  feature  of  the  whole  per- 
formance is  that  some  of  the  men  get  lost  at  every  manufac- 
turing town  along  the  way. 

This  is  a  doleful  tale  but  it  is  not  overdrawn  as  a  great 
many  employment  managers  will  admit  when  they  write  their 
autobiographies.  Scouts  go  from  one  town  to  another  and 
the  net  result  is  a  great  deal  of  traveling  which  does  no  good 
and  a  great  deal  of  unrest  stirred  up  by  just  plain  lying.  How- 
ever, not  all  scouting  is  bad.  It  is  possible  to  do  legitimate 
work  in  this  field,  but  it  cannot  be  expected  to  produce  im- 
mediate results.  If  the  scout  has  principles  and  is  not 
hounded  out  of  them  by  insistence  from  home  he  can  act  as 
a  missionary  or  a  salesman.  What  he  has  to  sell  is  just  as 
legitimate  as  what  the  salesmen  :from  his  firm  have  to  offer. 


—  101  — 

He  is  selling  opportunity,  and  there  is  little  enough  real  op- 
portunity for  sale.  If  he  goes  to  a  town  and  advertises  truth- 
fully, hands  out  circulars  descriptive  of  his  plant  and  his  town, 
shows  the  advantages  of  living  there,  its  schools,  its  libraries, 
its  banks',  its  low  cost  of  living  (if  there  is  such  a  place),  op- 
portunities for  recreation,  diversity  of  employment,  etc.,  or  in 
other  words,  if  he  puts  forth  legitimate  reasons,  which  he  can 
substantiate,  why  men  should  like  to  work  for  his  concern 
and  live  in  his  city,  he  will  get  a  few  men,  and  only  a  few. 

These  few  men,  however,  should  not  be  given  their  rail- 
road tickets.  They  may  be  promised  that  the  fare  will  be  re- 
funded if  they  stay  a  month,  but  at  the  end  of  a  month,  if  the 
conditions  are  a  little  better  than  the  scout  has  painted  them 
to  be,  it  will  be  necessary  to  force  the  money  on  them.  They 
will  write  home  and  get  their  families  to  come,  and  from  that 
moment  they  become  scouts  themselves  and  there  will  follow 
a  steady  flow  of  men  to  the  new  field.  It  will  only  come,  how- 
ever, if  the  new  field  is  really  better  than  the  old.  If  the  shop 
that  is  sending  out  scouts  is  not  a  good  shop,  and  if  it  is  not 
in  a  progressive  town,  it  can  make  no  permanent  gain.  Their 
employment  manager  will  have  to  steal  or  go  without.  Of 
course,  some  day  misrepresenting  working  conditions  and  ex- 
changing worthless  stocks  for  Liberty  Bonds  will  go  out  of 
fashion  by  way  of  the  jail  route,  but  at  present  we  still  seem 
to  have  the  Caveat  emptor  sign  (Let  the  Buyer  Beware)  over 
the  doors  of  too  many  employment  departments. 

Such  employment  managers  are  in  a  peculiar  position. 
They  have  duties  to  perform  and  they  have  above  them  men 
who  insist  that  these  duties  be  done  ethically,  but  yet  they 
impose  conditions  which  make  it  impossible.  Whether  a  man 
should  resign  from  such  a  position  and  plainly  tell  the  man- 
ager that  he  cannot  be  a  party  to  such  acts,  or  whether  he 
should  fight  it  out  and  hope  from  his  humble  position  he  may 
be  able  to  reform  the  management  is  a  question  he  must  de- 
cide for  himself.  We  can,  in  any  event,  at  least  admire  his 
courage  if  he  tries  the  latter. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
EMPLOYMENT  AGENCIES 

THE  idea  of  an  employment  agency  is  primarily  based  on 
the  thought  that  labor  is  a  commodity  to  be  bought  and 
sold  at  wholesale  or  retail  and  at  certain  fairly  definite  rates. 
An  order  for  a  hundred  laborers,  a  dozen  machinists,  or  ten 
mill  hands  goes  through  very  much  the  same  process  as 
an  order  for  a  carload  of  pig  iron  or  a  thousand  feet  of  tim- 
ber. It  is  the  intention  to  always  be  able  to  deliver  from 
stock,  consequently  as  long  a  waiting  list  is  kept  as  possible 
and  if  the  goods  are  not  on  hand  the  next  best  thing  is  to  go 
out  and  pick  them  up.  The  employment  agency  is  not 
troubled  either  in  pocketbook  or  conscience  about  the  danger 
of  reciprocal  action  because  they  do  not  care  whether  the  men 
stay  on  the  job  or  not;  in  fact  "floaters"  are  their  best  asset. 
This  applies  literally  to  private  agencies,  and  government 
agencies,  whether  state  or  federal,  inherit  the  same  ideas  for 
they  largely  recruit  their  officials  from  the  private  agencies. 
They  also  favor  the  "floater"  not  for  his  financial  value  to 
them,  for  there  are  no  commissions,  but  because  he  counts  in 
their  annual  report  a.s  twelve  men  placed  if  they  can  get  him 
into  a  different  job  every  month. 

If  the  objects  of  agencies  are  thus  so  entirely  contrary 
to  those  of  employment  departments,  how  can  they  be  ex- 
pected to  cooperate?  It  would  seem  that  the  desire  of  the 
employment  department  to  cut  down  labor  turnover  would 
operate  to  put  out  of  business  a  large  number  of  employment 
agencies,  as  their  revenue  is  derived  from  the  constant  shift- 
ing of  men  from  job  to  job.  Such  is  not  the  case,  however, 
for  the  method  of  the  employment  agency  is  to  stir  up  the 
great  mass  of  labor,  and  to  see  that  men  are  discontented. 

102 


—  103  — 

They  first  place  a  man  in  a  job  and  then  in  a  few  days  let  him 
know  that  they  understand  that  there  is  to  be  a  change  in  the 
management  and  that  he  had  better  leave  and  get  a  good  job, 
and  then  while  on  the  next  job  they  see  to  it  that  he  is  sorry 
he  changed  so  he  will  come  back  again  for  another  job,  and  so 
it  goes.  They  are  always  sympathetic,  they  let  him  tell  his 
whole  story,  and  he  seldom,  in  fact  he  never,  "catches  on"  to 
their  game. 

Let  us  for  a  moment  consider  the  functions  of  an  agency. 
It  is  or  should  be  a  clearing  house.  Suppose  a  city  of  mod- 
erate size  has  a  hundred  shops  located  chiefly  on  the  outskirts. 
It  might  easily  take  a  man  a  month  and  five  dollars  in  carfare 
to  see  every  shop  and  sit  around  in  the  employment  office 
long  enough  to  find  that  he  could  not  get  a  job.  A  central 
agency  by  the  use  of  the  telephone  could  send  him  to  at  most 
three  places  out  of  which  he  would  surely  land  his  job.  Over 
a  wider  territory  than  one  community  this  is  even  more  ap- 
parent. The  shifting  about  of  men  from  one  city  to  another 
should  be  a  function  of  some  agency,  and  should  be  controlled 
by  something  beside  luck.  Men  go  from  place  to  place  to- 
day with  very  little  more  to  guide  them  than  Columbus  had 
when  he  started  his  journey.  Columbus  had  a  good  excuse, 
but  we  have  no  excuse  to  offer  for  allowing  these  men  to  travel 
about  with  nothing  to  guide  them  but  hope  and  a  rumor. 
The  very  fact  that  so  many  do  get  stranded  and  have  to  go 
home  on  charity  is  enough  to  condemn  society  for  allowing  it. 

The  state  and  federal  employment  bureaus  were  created 
to  remedy  this  condition.  It  was  supposed  that  they  would 
be  so  closely  knit  together  that  they  could  shift  labor  as  rap- 
idly and  as  directly  as  each  case  might  demand,  but  there  has 
been  a  great  deal  of  criticism  of  the  federal  agencies  for  their 
alleged  failure  to  meet  the  call.  This  criticism,  however,  is 
unfair  when  directed  at  the  general  principle  underlying  their 
functions.  They  did  not  have  time  to  find  out  what  their 
jobs  were,  nor  how  large  they  were.  They  had  to  build  a 
great  organization  with  almost  nothing  for  salaries,  and  no 
time  in  which  to  make  proper  selections  of  employees  from 
the  applicants  who  would  consider  the  wage  amount  which 
they  offered.  They  drew  the  backbone  of  their  organization 


—  104  — 

from  private  agencies  because  there  was  no  other  place  to 
draw  from,  and  thus  all  the  evil  traditions  of  the  private  agency 
were  introduced  into  the  system.  These  men  could  not  be 
expected  to  acquire  ideals  over  night  and  in  many  cases  they 
simply  kept  on  with  their  tricks  on  a  larger  scale  than  ever. 
These  men  gave  the  service  a  decidedly  bad  name.  They 
were,  however,  being  gradually  eliminated  when  the  crash 
came.  This  of  course  proves  nothing  against  government  em- 
ployment agencies.  It  only  indicates  what  should  be  done 
next  time.  Given  an  adequate  leadership,  suitable  quarters, 
and  money  enough  to  hire  men  with  high  ideals,  as  well  as 
ability,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  supplant 
private  agencies.  They  should  understand  that  they  are  to 
be  judged  by  the  smallness  of  the  movement  of  men  rather 
than  by  the  bulk  of  their  business.  In  other  words,  they  must 
be  like  employment  managers,  always  trying  to  work  them- 
selves out  of  a  job. 

While  it  is  most  important  to  find  men  and  women  to  do 
the  work,  they  cannot  put  forth  their  best  efforts  unless  they 
are  placed  in  quarters  and  under  conditions  that  make  it  pos- 
sible for  self-respecting  men  and  women  to  come  to  them  for 
jobs.  Too  many  otherwise  well-informed  men  and  women 
think  that  all  workmen  are  slovenly,  dirty,  and  foul-mouthed, 
and  they  seem  to  think  that  a  public  employment  agency  must 
have  similar  characteristics  to  attract  workmen.  The  trouble 
is  that  they  meet  hundreds  of  workmen  on  the  street  dressed 
quite  as  well  as  they  are  and  do  not  recognize  them.  Nor  do 
they  understand  that  such  workmen,  which  means  practically 
all  that  are  skilled  or  semi-skilled,  will  not  go  near  an  agency 
public  or  private  that  is  dirty  and  which  appeals  only  to  foul 
people.  It  is  probably  wise  to  provide  separate  offices  not 
only  for  men  and  women  but  also  for  skilled  and  unskilled  la- 
bor. The  office  for  skilled  help  ought  to  look  at  least  as  well  as 
a  similar  employment  office  in  a  large  shop  doing  an  equal 
amount  of  business,  and  the  salaries  should  be  at  least  as  good 
instead  of  only  about  half  or  two-thirds  as  was  the  custom 
during  war  time. 

Given  good  surroundings  and  adequate  salaries,  the  next 
thing  is  ideals.  High  salaries  make  these  possible  but  by  no 


—  105  — 

means  guarantee  them.  By  ideals  the  author  means  noth- 
ing visionary  or  impracticable,  but  merely  a  realization 
that  men  seeking  jobs  are  not  mendicants  but  that  they  are 
seeking  to  sell  something  of  value  in  the  best  market  and 
are  entitled  to  the  same  gentlemanly  treatment  that  a  sales- 
man expects  to  receive  when  he  offers  his  goods.  The  man- 
agers should  also  constantly  remember  that  what  these  men 
have  to  sell  is  the  most  perishable  goods  that  exists.  Labor 
must  be  used  now  or  never.  A  day  or  a  week  wasted  look- 
ing for  a  job  can  never  be  made  up.  A  man  working  a  sea- 
sonal trade  may  be  out  of  work  a  week  or  two  weeks  between 
seasons,  if  he  does  not  have  assistance  in  getting  some  other 
kind  of  work  to  do,  and  he  should  not,  therefore,  be  punished 
for  being  jobless  by  being  placed  upon  a  "waiting  list."  The 
good  of  the  individual  and  the  good  of  the  man  are  the  same 
to  the  public  agency. 

The  public  agency  can  hardly  place  men  in  jobs.  It  can 
only  nominate.  One  shop  in  the  community  may  need  a 
dozen  weavers,  and  another  a  dozen  machinists,  and  yet 
neither  shop  could  safely  give  carte  blanche  to  an  agency 
not  under  its  control  to  make  contracts,  even  oral  ones,  with 
any  dozen  weavers  or  any  dozen  machinists  they  might 
have  on  their  list.  The  shop  can  only  consider  the  applicants 
in  the  same  way  as  if  they  came  to  their  employment  office 
of  their  own  volition.  Moreover,  there  are  great  differences 
in  men  who  rightfully  style  themselves  weavers  or  machinists. 
A  man  who  has  spent  his  life  weaving  ribbon  may  be  able  to 
earn  his  living  weaving  burlap;  but  reverse  the  program  and 
it  is  not  so  likely.  If  the  community  needs  more  machinists, 
the  public  employment  office  should  know  from  its  relations 
with  other  similar  offices  where  there  is  lack  of  work  so  that 
men  may  be  offered  the  new  opportunity  without  disturbing 
the  labor  conditions  in  their  home  town.  This  method,  how- 
ever, is  more  expensive  than  the  private  agency's  method  of 
offering  large  inducements  to  men  who  are  well  placed.  In 
this  connection  something  should  be  said  of  the  employment 
agencies  conducted  by  associations  of  employers. 

The  object  of  these  agencies  while  primarily  selfish  and 
self-centered  is  good  in  so  far  as  it  tends  to  offset  the  bad 


—  106  — 

practice  of  the  private  agencies.  Its  limitations  are  two  in 
number,  the  distrust  which  workmen  naturally  have  for  it  due 
to  its  backing,  and  its  own  tendency  to  develop  black  lists. 
Just  so  long  as  workmen  feel  that  they  are  selling  their  serv- 
ices to  an  enemy  they  will  feel  this  suspicion  of  any  employ- 
ment agency  fathered  by  a  combination  of  employers.  At 
times  when  the  employment  departments  of  individual  firms, 
that  are  considered  good  places  to  work,  are  crowded  with 
applicants,  the  public  offices  will  have  a  good  representation 
and  the  employers'  association  offices  will  have  almost  none 
at  all.  This  is  so  because  the  association  office  functions  only 
when  unemployment  is  prevalent,  and  when  men  must  have 
jobs  even  if  they  have  to  beg  for  them. 

Most  men  feel  that  it  is  begging  for  a  job  to  go  to  an  as- 
sociation office.  The  result  is  that  the  greatest  value  of  these 
offices  is  in  the  records  which  they  keep  and  the  histories  of 
workmen  which  are  available.  These  histories  are  complete 
only  as  they  are  made  so  by  reports  from  the  individual  em- 
ployers of  men  whom  they  hire  and  let  go.  It  is  these  indi- 
vidual reports  which  lead  to  the  building  up  of  what  prac- 
tically amounts  to  black  lists.  What  usually  occurs  is  that 
firms  report  not  only  that  John  Smith  worked  from  one  date 
to  another,  and  that  he  was  paid  so  much  money  and  did  a 
specific  kind  of  work,  but  they  also  include  comments  which 
are  confidential  but  which  are  available  to  the  membership. 

Then  there  is  a  class  of  men  whose  only  desire  for  em- 
ployment is  in  a  certain  limited  group  of  concerns.  They  do 
not  want  their  names  spread  broadcast  as  candidates  for  jobs 
and  to  them  the  association  bureau  offers  an  excellent  op- 
portunity. As  a  means  for  securing  help  in  any  great  num- 
bers for  their  members,  however,  the  association  bureau  is 
not  likely  to  be  a  conspicuous  success.  Its  very  form  limits 
it  to  the  needs  of  a  small  group  of  employees,  and  even  the 
men  whose  services  are  valuable  to  a  number  of  groups  do  not 
find  it  of  much  use.  For  example,  if  in  a  given  city  the  build- 
ers of  machine  tools  form  an  association  and  run  an  employ- 
ment bureau,  they  may  find  that  after  all  they  employ  less 
than  half  the  machinists  in  town  and  applicants  do  not  come 
to  them  for  this  very  reason. 


—  107  — 

Social  organizations  also  deserve  a  word  of  comment  for 
they  find  jobs  ostensibly  for  all  but  usually  in  effect  only  for 
their  members  and  friends.  Their  employment  bureaus  are 
pests  in  many  instances,  the  exception  being  the  inactive 
ones  and  a  very  few  who  realize  that  they  have  no  excuse  for 
existence  except  as  they  serve  a  useful  purpose.  For  the  most 
part  their  activities  begin  and  end  with  telephoning  to  influ- 
ential men,  usually  members,  and  asking  them  to  use  their 
influence  to  get  John  Smith  a  job  because  he  needs  it.  They 
may  begin  by  calling  up  the  employment  office  of  this  influ- 
ential man's  shop,  but  as  soon  as  they  learn  that  the  employ- 
ment department  is  not  interested  in  John  Smith's  needs  but 
only  what  he  can  offer,  they  give  it  up.  They  are  therefore 
apt  to  complain  at  the  lack  of  sympathy  shown  by  the  em- 
ployment department  and  so  they  appeal  through  influence, 
thereby  assisting  Smith  to  take  the  first  step  toward  becom- 
ing a  parasite. 

These  association  agencies,  however,  do  have  large  op- 
portunities for  helping  the  employment  situation  and  many 
times  they  would  do  so  if  the  aversion  to  them  were  not  so 
great.  They  could,  if  they  would,  act  in  a  manner  about  half 
way  between  the  public  agencies  and  the  employment  depart- 
ments by  functioning  as  a  rating  bureau.  The  public  em- 
ployment office  cannot  possibly  make  selections  of  men  based 
upon  any  more  information  than  that  given  by  the  men  them- 
selves. They  cannot,  as  we  have  said,  differentiate  between 
different  grades  and  different  specialties;  they  must  deal  in  a 
rather  broad,  general  way  and  as  a  result  they  cannot  appeal 
very  strongly  to  the  man  who  has  a  specialty  which  he  wants 
to  follow. 

If  these  societies  could  only  learn  that  in  their  anxiety  to 
help  they  only  harm,  they  would  soon  desist.  They  may  go 
into  it  for  the  selfish  purpose  of  getting  jobs  for  members,  or 
they  may  do  it  for  the  patriotic  one  of  helping  the  returned 
soldier,  but  in  either  case  the  result  is  the  same,  for  their  only 
means  of  securing  jobs  for  their  members  is  pull,  influ- 
ence, threats  of  .reprisal,  and  assertions  of  disloyalty.  The 
harm  they  do  is  to  the  man's  self-respect  for  when  he  finds 
that  he  can  get  good  jobs  any  time  by  appealing  to  friendship 


—  108  — 

or  a  pass  word  he  thinks  he  has  discovered  something  better 
than  work  and  unfortunately  he  is  more  than  half  right.  Al- 
most every  firm  has  dead  wood  in  its  organization  drawing 
good  pay  and  looking  very  important  but  whose  presence  there 
can  only  be  accounted  for  on  the  ground  that  they  were 
"wished  into  the  organization."  These  men  find  it  is  easy 
to  stay  and  the  man  with  real  ability  who  does  not  realize  that 
the  management  wants  to  be  praised  more  than  it  wants  divi- 
dends finds  his  promotion  choked  by  these  tactful  and  diplo- 
matic parasites. 

Finally,  all  things  considered,  it  seems  as  though  public 
employment  agencies  should  be  encouraged  because  they  havo 
a  large  and  legitimate  field  of  action  and  because  the  only 
way  to  drive  out  the  private  agency  is  to  offer  something  bet- 
ter. It  has  been  clearly  shown  that  the  bureau  of  the  trade 
association  has  a  bad  reputation  which  will  require  years  of 
patient  good  behavior  to  cure ;  such  an  organization,  however, 
has  a  specialized  function  to  perform,  and  by  cooperating  with 
the  employment  departments  of  individual  firms  it  can  do  so 
to  the  profit  of  all. 


PERFECT  freedom  can  only  be  brought  into  industry 
when  those  who  wish  to  make  their  bargains  for  employ- 
ment individually  can  do  so,  and  those  who  wish  to  make  them 
by  groups  can  also  do  so.  We  are  never  able  to  acquire  perfect 
freedom  because  that  which  would  be  entirely  harmless  in  iso- 
lated instances  cannot  be  tolerated  where  men  gather  together 
in  large  numbers.  What  we  must  always  consider  is  not  the 
greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number,  but  the  greatest  total 
good  to  all.  The  evil  results  of  the  crude  attempts  at  col- 
lective bargaining,  which  have  been  so  much  in  the  public 
eye  for  many  years,  are  so  evident  and  the  good  effects  are  so 
little  known  that  we  are  apt  to  believe  that  it  is  all  bad  and 
that  no  good  can  come  of  it.  The  very  fact  that  a  man  has 
risen  from  the  ranks,  worked  his  way  through  obstacles  alone 
and  emerged  as  the  directing  head  of  some  great  industry,  is 
positive  proof  that  he  cannot  believe  in  collective  bargaining, 
for  people  like  himself  at  least.  He  cannot  of  course  be  ex- 
pected to  have  the  same  point  of  view  as  the  man  who  finds 
himself  submerged  in  such  a  complex  social  and  business  mael- 
strom that  he  cannot  see  his  way  out  except  by  clinging  to 
some  one  else  in  blind  faith. 

The  man  who  must  cling  to  some  other  man's  coat  tails 
has  a  choice  of  two  evils.  He  may  cling  to  his  employer's  and 
the  latter  may  in  a  paternalistic  way  drag  him  along  with 
him.  Every  day  we  see  instances  where  men  rise  to  places  of 
considerable  prominence  by  reflecting  their  superiors,  but  who 
utterly  fail  when  they  lose  their  grip  on  their  leader.  The 
other  alternative  is  to  cling  to  his  neighbor  and  his  neighbor's 
neighbor  in  the  belief  held  before  them  constantly  by  our 

109 


—  110  — 

National  motto,  E  Pluribus  Unum.  By  sheer  weight  of  num- 
bers and  without  leadership  of  the  true  kind  they  hope  to  hold 
their  own  against  the  selfishness  of  employers  who  should  have 
both  unity  and  leadership.  And  often,  although  they  have  ad- 
vanced their  cause,  it  has  been  due  not  so  much  to  sheer 
weight  of  numbers  as  to  the  fact  that  the  unity  and  leader- 
ship of  employers  has  so  often  proved  to  be  imaginary. 

Employers  who  have  been  most  bitter  in  their  denunciation 
of  collective  bargaining  have  themselves  encouraged  it  by 
setting  up  standard  wages,  standard  hours  of  labor,  and  uni- 
form regulations  as  to  work.  That  is,  in  all  vital  matters  they 
have  established  collective  bargaining  while  still  pretending 
that  they  are  dealing  individually.  Every  time  a  raise  in 
wages  is  refused  to  an  individual,  on  the  ground  that  if  one 
employee  is  advanced  others  will  also  have  to  be,  they  take  one 
more  step  toward  universal  collective  bargaining.  Laziness 
and  ignorance  on  the  part  of  employers  are  responsible;  lazi- 
ness, in  that  it  is  easier  to  set  a  wage  rate  for  a  class  of  men 
than  for  each  individual;  and  ignorance,  in  that  wages  have 
been  set  without  a  full  knowledge  of  what  was  expected  or 
required  of  employees.  Accordingly,  wages,  especially  piece 
rates,  have  been  set  in  total  ignorance  of  what  men  were 
capable  of  doing.  Very  few  shops  have  seriously  attempted 
to  discover  how  long  a  time  is  actually  necessary  to  do  any 
one  of  the  operations  in  its  processes  of  manufacture.  If  a 
stop  watch  is  used  to  time  men  already  doing  productive  work, 
it  practically  proves  that  the  management  does  not  know  what 
is  the  most  important  part  of  production. 

As  long,  however,  as  employers  practice  this  one-sided  form 
of  collective  bargaining,  and  as  long  as  they  decline  to  consider 
individual  cases,  but  attempt  to  treat  all  alike,  just  so  long 
is  there  certain  to  be  friction,  because  this  method  does  not 
appeal  to  any  of  their  employees  as  fair  and  just.  Neither 
does  it  appeal  to  those  who  want  their  cases  considered  on 
merit;  nor  even  to  the  man  who  wishes  to  be  carried  along 
by  the  tide,  because  he  does  not  see  that  he,  or  his  accepted 
leaders,  are  in  any  way  consulted.  In  other  words,  the  deal 
is  collective,  but  it  is  a  bargain  only  in  the  sense  that  certain 
conditions  are  offered  which  are  to  be  accepted  or  refused  as 


—  Ill  — 

the  case  may  be.  If  the  conditions  are  not  accepted  there 
results  either  a  general  strike,  which  is  unfortunate  for  every- 
body, or  individual  strikes  classified  as  labor  turnover  which 
are  equally  costly  and  lamentable  though  not  so  spectacular. 
If  a  concern  employs  a  thousand  men  and  the  labor  turnover 
is  200  per  cent,  it  makes  little  difference  that  the  same  turnover 
did  not  occur  through  two  complete  strikes  in  that  year  for 
the  same  number  of  new  men  have  to  be  broken  in  to  take 
the  place  of  those  who  went  out  either  singly  or  en  masse. 

Experience  indicates  that  it  is  very  costly  to  actually  deal 
with  any  considerable  number  of  men  on  a  strictly  individual 
basis.  In  order  to  do  so  it  is  necessary  to  have  an  organiza- 
tion in  which  judgment  of  individuals  is  exercised  by  foremen 
each  of  whom  knows  only  a  small  number  of  workers  and  who 
also  has  his  own  ideas  as  to  how  the  men  under  him  should 
be  rated.  In  a  shop  with  ten  thousand  employees  there  may 
be  a  hundred  foremen  who  are  thus  able  to  have  a  fair  ac- 
quaintance with  the  men  under  them,  but  the  hundred  fore- 
men will  inevitably  have  a  hundred  differing  standards.  A 
single  workman  passed  from  one  foreman  to  another  will 
have  one  hundred  different  ratings,  depending  not  alone  on 
the  capacity  of  the  foreman  he  happens  to  be  under  to  deter- 
mine his  value,  but  on  his  value  as  brought  out  by  that  par- 
ticular foreman. 

There  are  superintendents  who  claim  to  know  every  man 
in  a  thousand-man  shop,  and  to  know  just  what  he  is  worth 
as  related  to  the  other  men,  but  superintendents  who  are  really 
capable  of  doing  this  are  so  rare  that  it  is  permissible  to  doubt 
their  assertions  until  they  prove  them.  In  any  case,  a  shop 
with  such  a  remarkable  superintendent  is  likely  to  lose  him  at 
any  time,  and  then  it  is  faced  with  the  certainty  that  it  will 
not  be  able  to  duplicate  him.  An  organization  which  is  wholly 
a  matter  of  personality  is  not  an  organization;  it  cannot  go 
on  without  its  individual  mainspring.  Even  a  moderate  sized 
business  cannot  afford  to  be  dependent  on  individuals  at  any 
point  in  its  organization.  It  must  literally  be  an  organization 
plus  a  heart  in  order  to  succeed.  In  the  face  of  increased  size 
of  business  organizations  we  shall  have  to  give  up  the  idea 
that  more  than  a  small  proportion  of  the  employees  can  be 


—  112  — 

given  entirely  fair-minded  individual  treatment  through  the 
medium  of  a  military  organization  which  makes  their  foremen 
the  representatives  of  the  company. 

It  is  almost  equally  difficult  to  maintain  a  purely  individ- 
ual relation  to  employees  through  the  medium  of  an  employ- 
ment department  and  for  very  much  the  same  reason,  which 
is  the  lack  of  opportunity  for  personal  contact  with  a  large 
number  of  people  which  shall  be  intimate  enough  to  make  fair 
judgment  of  them  possible.  If  contact  is  maintained  through 
an  employment  department  it  must  be  chiefly  through  their 
records,  and  indeed  it  is  much  better  for  a  man  to  be  judged 
by  his  record  than  by  the  whim  of  some  foreman  who  might 
easily  reverse  his  own  judgment.  For  example,  if  a  foreman 
wishes  to  discharge  a  man  for  incompetence  and  there  are  no 
records,  it  is  impossible  to  offset  the  fact  that  a  recent  occur- 
rence looked  like  the  act  of  an  incompetent  person ;  but  when 
the  records  indicate  that  this  same  man  has  a  high  attendance 
record,  that  his  spoiled  work  record  is  much  below  the  average, 
and  that  he  has  been  recommended  for  increases  in  pay  several 
times  and  granted  them  on  the  score  of  exceptional  ability, 
then  the  foreman  may  have  to  admit  that  he  was  hasty. 

The  greatest  difficulty  with  records  in  an  employment  office 
is  to  get  all  the  good  marks  into  the  record.  The  black  marks 
get  there  automatically,  but  the  creditable  ones  are  easily 
overlooked.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  system  by  which  a 
man  is  judged  by  his  record  is  infinitely  fairer  than  when  he 
is  judged  by  the  impulse  of  one  man,  and  it  is  especially  so 
if  a  serious  attempt  is  made  to  hear  both  sides  of  the  case.  In 
fact,  it  sometimes  seems  best  that  the  employment  manager 
is  not  well  acquainted  with  everybody,  for  it  puts  him  in  a 
much  better  position  to  act  judicially  if  it  is  generally  known 
about  the  shop  that  he  does  not  make  intimate  friends  and 
confidants  of  everybody. 

It  would  seem  that  if  any  firm  hesitates  to  follow  the  ap- 
parent tendency  toward  collective  bargaining  it  might  well 
seriously  consider  dealing  with  individual  workmen  through 
the  medium  of  an  employment  department,  known  to  authori- 
tatively represent  the  management  and  which  preserves  suffi- 
cient distance  from  entangling  personal  friendships  so  that 


—  113  — 

it  will  be  accepted  by  the  employees  as  fair  and  even-minded. 
There  is,  however,  a  greater  and  greater  tendency  for  employ- 
ers to  very  quietly  and  unostentatiously  admit  a  leaning  to- 
ward catering  to  the  class  of  employees  who  feel  the  necessity 
of  leaning  on  one  another,  or  on  some  leader  whom  they  may 
select  in  company  with  their  fellow  men.  There  are,  however, 
very  decided  objections  to  doing  this  under  the  conditions 
which  have  surrounded  much  of  this  kind  of  bargaining  in  the 
past.  Some  of  these  conditions  have  been  brought  about  by 
the  employers  themselves,  such  for  example  as  the  fighting 
type  of  leaders  which  the  men  have  had  and  the  tendency  for 
them  to  bring  in  outside  help  to  fight  their  battles  for  them. 
The  fighting  type  of  leader  naturally  gravitates  toward  places 
where  fights  are  necessary  to  win  their  case.  Employers  have, 
however,  so  often  refused  to  admit  that  there  was  an  organiza- 
tion to  which  their  employees  belonged,  and  so  often  over- 
looked the  chance  to  discuss  matters  sanely  with  the  reason- 
ing type  of  leader  that  it  has  been  impossible  for  the  latter  to 
continue  in  office.  Employees  have  also  brought  in  outsiders 
as  spokesmen;  that  is,  paid  professional  agitators,  because  ex- 
perience has  taught  them  to  expect  that  the  leaders  in  any  one 
shop  if  known  to  the  management  will  be  summarily  dropped 
from  the  rolls.  Therefore,  their  only  safe  course  is  to  get  others 
who  have  no  fear  of  discharge  to  represent  them. 

It  should  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  very  fact  that 
there  is  an  organized  strike  in  any  shop  is  an  indication  of 
at  least  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  workmen  to  stay  employed 
in  that  shop.  In  effect,  they  say  to  the  management,  "We 
like  to  work  for  you  except  for  the  things  which  we  are  de- 
manding." When  the  same  number  of  men  leave  of  their 
own  accord  and  go  to  work  elsewhere  it  may  easily  mean  that 
they  feel  that  they  have  no  use  or  sympathy  for  the  firm.  A 
quiet  strike  thus  carried  out  one  by  one  and  shown  only  in 
the  labor  turnover  may  indicate  a  very  much  worse  condition 
of  affairs  in  the  shop  than  an  open  strike. 

Another  way  in  which  employers  have  helped  to  bring 
about  conditions  which  they  find  a  burden  lies  in  their  failure 
to  offset  the  propaganda  of  the  labor  unions.  When  one  of 
the  representatives  of  the  labor  unions  comes  into  a  city  and 


announces  a  campaign  the  employers  too  often  help  him  by 
announcing  their  determination  of  fighting  him  on  every 
proposition  before  they  know  what  it  is.  This  makes  it  easy 
for  the  representative  to  convince  the  general  public  that 
the  workmen  are  martyrs,  and  martyrs  almost  always  get  a  ma- 
jority vote.  When  an  attempt  is  made  to  offset  the  arguments 
of  the  agitators  it  fails  to  reach  its  mark  because  it  is  too  far 
above  the  heads  of  the  class  it  is  intended  to  influence,  or  if 
the  speaker  attempts  to  imitate  their  leader  it  is  too  obviously 
an  imitation.  If  a  small  fraction  of  the  thought  that  is  put 
into  sales  campaigns  was  put  into  campaigns  for  holding  em- 
ployees through  their  sympathies  and  reasoning  ability,  there 
would  be  much  less  friction. 

In  almost  every  successful  labor  campaign  there  has  been 
an  element  of  justice  back  of  labor's  demands,  but  the  greater 
part  of  the  allegations  and  demands  have  been  so  exaggerated 
that  it  should  have  been  possible  for  capable  speakers  to 
have  shown  the  workmen  that  they  were  being  unwisely  led. 
Employers  who  study  the  situation  are  beginning  to  see  that 
one  mistake  that  they  have  made  was  in  belittling  their 
opponent.  A  labor  agitator  may  not  appear  very  bright,  he 
may  drink  quite  all  the  law  allows,  but  he  is  foxy,  and  he  puts 
on  his  appearance  as  a  part  of  his  job.  It  takes  a  keen  mind 
and  a  man  with  a  gift  of  talking  in  plain  and  unmistakable 
language  to  counteract  his  efforts.  More  than  that,  he  must 
be  able  to  go  before  workmen  with  clean  hands.  He  must 
discover  the  nucleus  of  truth  in  the  agitator's  story  and  his 
employers  must  remove  the  real  cause  of  the  trouble  before 
his  words  will  have  any  effect. 

Suppose  that  all  cause  for  mutual  distrust  could  be  elimi- 
nated from  the  minds  of  all  parties,  would  it  then  be  wise  to 
have  universal  collective  bargaining?  Let  us  see.  Universal 
collective  bargaining  is  something  very  different  from  bar- 
gaining with  labor  unions  as  at  present  organized  in  the 
United  States.  Now  it  is  only  possible  to  deal  collectively 
with  less  than  ten  per  cent  of  those  working  for  wages.  It 
is  noticeable  that  labor  organizations  have  never  claimed 
that  any  very  large  percentage  of  workers  were  organizable 
and  that  they  have  never  had  in  their  organizations  more 


—  115  — 

than  one-fifth  of  those  that  they  have  claimed  as  eligible. 
Whether  this  is  intentional  or  not,  it  has  made  it  possible  for 
the  limited  membership  to  demand  and  to  secure  wages  out 
of  all  proportion  to  the  others  without  unduly  or  noticeably 
increasing  the  cost  of  living  for  all.  It  was  only  when  the 
war  brought  about  an  effect  similar  to  the  unionization  of 
many  more  men  that  the  increased  wages  which  they  de- 
manded raised  the  cost  of  living  to  the  point  where  we  all  find 
this  problem  to  be  ours  rather  than  one  solely  between  em- 
ployer and  employee.  It  is  trite  to  say  that  increase  in  general 
wage  rates  without  increased  production  must  be  felt  at  once 
in  the  cost  of  everything  into  which  labor  enters.  It  is  also 
possible  to  greatly  increase  the  income  of  a  small  percentage 
of  all  employees,  especially  those  engaged  in  trades  not  related 
to  food  products,  without  appreciably  affecting  the  total  cost 
of  living. 

The  experience  of  the  country  during  the  war  indicates 
that  total  unionization  of  workers  carried  out  without  regula- 
tion would  benefit  no  one.  If  wages  are  universally  increased 
and  production  decreased  there  is  inevitably  a  readjustment 
which  is  the  equivalent  of  a  depreciated  currency,  and  not 
only  does  no  one  profit  but  we  are  all  placed  in  a  position  in 
which  we  cannot  trade  with  other  countries  where  infla- 
tion is  not  the  rule.  Universal  collective  bargaining  should 
mean  that  every  employer  would  make  his  bargain  for  labor 
not  with  each  individual  who  comes  to  his  gate,  but  with  the 
group  of  men  who  are  already  working  for  him.  It  does  not 
mean  dealing  with  other  bodies  of  men  working  perhaps  in 
diversified  shops  in  other  localities,  or  possibly  not  working 
at  all.  Nor  does  collective  bargaining  in  its  true  sense  mean 
that  the  men  working  in  a  given  shop  will  ask  some  one  out- 
side their  own  number  and  representing  interests  other  than 
their  own  to  come  in  and  sell  their  labor  for  them.  It  does 
mean,  however,  that  they  will  collectively  and  through  duly 
accredited  representatives  deal  for  all  with  the  employer. 

Organizations  composed  of  representatives  of  a  number  of 
shops  in  the  same  line  of  work  might  deal  with  organizations 
of  a  number  of  employers  in  that  same  line  of  business.  In 
other  words,  there  can  be  only  minor  objections  to  dealing 


—  116  — 

with  representatives  of  one's  own  employees  provided  every- 
thing is  done  in  a  trustworthy  way.  The  practical  objections 
are  based  on  experiences  which  make  employers  and  employees 
each  feel  distrust  for  the  other.  Whether  there  is  any  way  in 
which  this  distrust  can  be  eliminated  and  a  new  relation  estab- 
lished is  of  course  still  an  open  question,  "nit  it  is  very  certain 
that  there  will  be  industrial  unrest  until  there  is  some  way 
provided  for  both  parties  to  come  together  in  confidence  and 
with  good  intentions  toward  one  another. 

There  must  also  be  some  way  provided  by  which  the  rela- 
tive value  of  labor  in  different  industries  may  be  kept  adjusted 
in  an  equitable  way.  The  pre-war  condition  in  which  an  all- 
around  machinist  received  less  pay  than  men  in  occupations 
which  could  hardly  be  called  trades,  is  not  fit  for  perpetua- 
tion under  any  scheme  of  collective  bargaining.  Within  the 
easily  learned  occupations  these  discrepancies  adjust  them- 
selves through  the  flow  of  men  from  one  calling  to  another, 
but  between  the  trades  such  as  that  of  machinist  or  plumber, 
where  quite  a  time  is  required  for  learning,  there  is  no  pro- 
vision for  the  rapid  exchange.  A  man  does  not  lay  down  his 
machinist's  or  plumber's  kit  and  take  up  riveting  without  giv- 
ing the  matter  a  great  deal  of  thought.  He  feels  a  certain 
pride  in  his  calling  and  accepts  the  chance  to  make  a  dollar 
or  two  a  day  more  pay  in  the  other  vocation  only  with  reluc- 
tance, if  at  all. 

There  is  also  the  problem  of  promotion  which  can  be  solved 
by  promoting  not  within  the  rank  but  from  one  rank  to 
another.  Such  a  plan  is  noticeable  in  organizations  like  the 
army  or  navy  where  every  man  of  a  given  rank  receives  the 
same  compensation,  and  rivalry  for  promotion  is  just  as  keen 
as  where  all  men  are  paid  different  rates  but  called  by  the 
same  name.  It  would  simplify  matters  very  much  if  it  were 
possible  to  determine  from  a  man's  rating  what  he  formerly 
drew  for  pay.  For  example  if  every  third-class  machinist 
were  paid  forty  cents  per  hour  (where  day  rate  is  used)  the 
fact  that  he  held  that  rating  in  Jones'  shop  would  determine 
his  pay  there.  His  next  employer's  problem  would  then 
simply  be  to  discover  whether  he  was  entitled  to  a  promotion 
to  second-class  machinist. 


—  117  — 

There  is  also  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  everything 
is  out  in  the  open.  The  man  who  asks  for  an  increase  in  pay 
because  his  wife  heard  that  his  next  door  neighbor  got  three 
cents  an  hour  more  working  at  some  other  shop  would  know 
at  once  whether  or  not  the  story  were  true,  and  his  employer 
could  assure  him  that  if  he  was  entitled  to  the  rating  that  the 
other  men  had  he  also  could  get  the  same  rate.  So  far  as  the 
employee  himself  is  concerned  it  is  better  to  have  the  help  of 
a  committee  of  his  mates  in  passing  upon  the  question  of 
his  rating  than  it  is  to  leave  the  matter  entirely  to  the  whim 
of  a  foreman  who  has  no  interest  in  the  man  as  an  individual, 
and  whose  ideas  are  so  often  dependent  on  the  state  of  his 
mind  and  health. 

The  most  successful  shops  have  means  of  their  own  for  find- 
ing out  the  temper  of  the  shop.  They  usually  know  how  a 
given  move  will  be  looked  upon  by  their  workmen  before  they 
make  it.  Thus  in  its  practical  working  there  would  probably 
be  little  difference  between  a  successful  shop  which  dealt  with 
its  men  collectively  and  any  other  shop,  except  that  there 
would  be  a  very  much  better  feeling  among  the  workmen 
which  must  inevitably  come  with  the  sense  that  they  have 
some  part  in  the  way  the  shop  is  being  run.  There  is  a 
great  difference  between  living  in  a  republic  and  a  monarchy. 
At  the  present  time  all  attempts  to  establish  collective  bar- 
gaining within  a  shop  must  be  entirely  experimental.  .There 
is  no  precedent  of  sufficient  magnitude  to  make  it  possible 
to  say  how  it  will  work  out.  It  is  very  safe  to  prophesy  from 
the  political  history  of  the  country  that  when  it  is  first  tried 
in  any  .shop  there  will  be  a  flood  of  crazy  suggestions  which 
will  have  to  be  eliminated ;  and  after  that  if  the  management 
demonstrates  its  intent  to  play  fair  there  will  be  so  little 
interest  in  it  that  the  management  may  feel  that  it  is  useless 
to  maintain  the  machinery  of  the  organization.  In  this  they 
will  be  mistaken,  as  the  very  fact  that  the  machinery  is  there 
by  which  the  employees  may  bring  matters  to  the  attention 
of  the  management  and  ask  for  a  hearing,  is  a  safety  valve, 
the  very  presence  of  which  will  maintain  peace. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
REFERENCES 

HOW  much  interchange  of  information  should  there  be 
between  employers?  Should  a  man  who  leaves  be  re- 
quired to  give  a  notice?  If  he  does  not  give  a  notice  should  he 
be  punished  by  the  next  employment  office  *he  applies  to  by 
that  office  refusing  to  hire  him?  Shall  he  be  required  to  give 
references,  and  shall  his  references  be  looked  up?  All  these 
questions  are  in  the  minds  of  the  employment  manager  most  of 
the  time.  They  are  more  vital  than  the  percentage  of  labor 
turnover  and  yet  they  are  not  discussed  and  labor  turnover 
is,  all  of  which  simply  means  that  labor  turnover  is  a  "safe" 
subject  and  this  interchange  of  information  is  not.  If  we 
are  to  discuss  these  matters  frankly  we  must  at  once  admit 
that  our  ideals  cannot  be  reached  until  we  are  ideal  ourselves, 
and  we  employment  managers,  superintendents,  general  man- 
agers and  all,  are  a  long  way  from  being  ideal.  In  all  these 
matters  we  are  prejudiced  parties.  Worse  than  that,  we  form 
our  prejudices  on  very  little  evidence  and  we  do  it  hastily. 

If  we  were  all  that  we  ought  to  be  it  would  be  perfectly 
safe  for  workmen  to  trust  us  in  these  matters,  but  we  cannot 
expect  them  to  do  so  while  we  act  as  we  do.  For  example,  a 
certain  man  who  was  hired  with  a  distinct  understanding  that 
his  pay  was  to  be  advanced  a  given  amount  at  the  end  of 
six  months  waited  eight  months,  and  then  when  he  asked  for 
his  raise  was  told  that  he  was  not  worth  it  and  if  he  did  not 
like  it  he  could  "quit."  He  quit,  and  his  former  superior 
attempted  to  prevent  his  being  hired  by  the  next  company 
to  which  he  applied.  When  such  a  state  of  affairs  is  possible 
and  there  is  no  court  of  review,  how  can  we  ask  any  one  to 
trust  us? 

118 


—  119  — 

Similar  occurrences  are  common.  Men  leave  or  are  dis- 
charged and  their  foremen  go  to  the  foremen  in  other  shops 
and  "tip  them  off"  that  the  man  is  not  fit  to  be  hired.  There 
is  no  specified  objection  and  nothing  is  written,  consequently 
there  is  no  redress.  There  probably  is  no  formal  black-list 
but  there  are  many  private  oral  understandings  which  have 
all  the  ill  effects  of  a  black-list,  This  pernicious  practice  is 
not  entirely  confined  to  men  of  the  grade  of  foremen  but  ex- 
tends to  superintendents  and  sometimes  even  to  the  general 
manager.  It  is  done  by  foremen  whose  superiors  do  not  know 
it  but  would  frown  upon  it  if  they  did,  and,  strange  to  say, 
even  superintendents  and  general  managers  who  would  not 
tolerate  for  a  minute  such  practice  on  the  part  of  any  one 
under  them  are  also  guilty.  Of  course,  every  case  is  "differ- 
ent" or  "special"  and  men  who  deplore  lawlessness  will  take 
the  law  into  their  own  hands  to  prevent  a  man's  getting 
another  job.  They  will  do  it  to  the  injury  of  good  men  -whom 
they  want  to  keep,  and  to  the  injury  of  alleged  bad  men 
whom  they  want  to  punish.  Under  these  circumstances,  and 
they  are  not  rare,  we  have  little  chance  to  point  a  finger  of 
scorn  at  any  one.  If  there  is  any  firm  that  has  not  been 
guilty  of  one  of  these  two  acts  in  the  past  year  it  is  indeed 
an  exception.  Nor  can  we  afford  to  place  credence  on  the 
statements  of  other  firms  as  to  men  who  have  left  or  are 
proposing  to  leave. 

Many  men  will  not  give  notice  that  they  are  going  to 
leave  for  fear  that  all  other  equally  good  or  better  jobs  will 
be  immediately  closed  to  them.  They  only  learn  this  by  ex- 
perience, but  once  they  have  learned  it  they  are  not  likely,  to 
forget.  If  asked  for  references,  they  give  the  names  of  men 
whom  they  know  will  give  them  a  good  name.  If  the  firm 
writes  to  former  employers  it  knows  in  advance  that  it  will 
get  a  reply  that  is  not  worth  much,  in  fact,  no  more  than  the 
reply  they  themselves  send  out  under  similar  circumstances. 
There  is  a  difference  between  putting  down  statements  in 
black  and  white  that  may  fall  into  the  "hands  of  the  employee 
himself  and  conveying  the  information  over  the  telephone  or 
at  a  meeting  with  no  reporters  allowed,  for  confidential  letters 
are  not  always  kept  confidential.  References  are  often  shown 


—  120  — 

or  read  to  the  man  himself  and  the  writer  has  even  known 
them  to  be  given  outright  to  the  victim.  It  is  best  not  to 
ask  for  them.  But  if  they  are  called  for  it  is  wisest  to  reply 
only  by  a  statement  of  fact  guarded  by  some  such  phrase  as, 

"Our  books  show  that ,"  "Our  records  are  incomplete 

but  they  would  seem  to  indicate  that ,"  etc.     This 

does  not  entirely  ignore  the  request  and  yet  it  avoids  the  dan- 
ger that  the  firm  will  get  into  serious  trouble. 

As  these  matters  are  at  present  we  might  as  well  admit 
that  employers  are  injuring  themselves  by  reducing  the  in- 
centive to  give  notice  of  leaving;  and  their  employees  by  giv- 
ing vent  to  their  indignation  when  it  would  be  fairer  to  first 
investigate  the  man's  side.  It  should  not  be  thought  that  the 
writer  does  not  appreciate  the  fact  that  a  great  number  of 
employers  are  fair-minded  and  would  not  consciously  stoop  to 
such  acts  and  would  be  shocked  to  know  that  they  occur  in 
their  shops,  but  one  foreman  or  one  superintendent  who  is 
provoked  at  the  action  of  some  workman  may  easily  give  the 
entire  shop  "a  black  eye."  A  hundred  honest  men  cannot  pro- 
tect themselves  from  being  smirched  by  the  action  of  the  one 
who  meets  a  foreman  from  another  shop  and  tips  him  off  that 
John  Smith  is  leaving  Foreman  Jones'  department  and  he 
ought  not  to  be  hired  by  anybody. 

If  our  present  method  is  bad  what  can  be  done  for  pro- 
tection? Shall  every  applicant  for  a  job  be  allowed  to  tell 
his  story  uncorroborated?  That  is  practically  what  happens. 
John  Smith  can  go  to  any  shop  and  state  that  he  worked  for 
any  list  of  concerns  that  he  cares  to  mention  and  the  list  goes 
down  on  his  record.  If  letters  are  sent  to  these  previous 
employers  it  is  a  dead  certainty  that  a  considerable  fraction 
of  them  will  have  no  record  of  John  Smith  at  all  except  on 
the  payroll.  There  may  be  a  record  that  he  left  for  "a  better 
job,"  "got  more  money  somewhere  else,"  or  more  likely  just 
"left,"  but  if  the  record  does  not  show  that  he  worked  there 
it  proves  nothing  except  that  a  very  superficial  record  was 
kept.  Then  again,  men  often  work  for  a  sub-contractor.  A 
builder,  for  example,  may  hire  his  own  men  but  the  plumber 
appears  only  on  the  books  of  another  contractor.  All  the  man 
knows  is  the  name  of  the  foreman  and  what  his  wages  were. 


—  121  — 

It  would  simplify  records  and  make  it  very  much  better 
for  both  employers  and  for  employees  if  every  man  carried  a 
card  indicating  where  he  worked  from  date  to  date,  what  his 
rating  was,  and  how  much  he  was  paid.  If  the  record  were 
correct  it  would  be  a  help ;  but  if  the  record  were  incomplete, 
or  wrong  in  any  particular,  or  if  it  gave  any  personal  animad- 
versions it  would  be  worthless.  Personal  opinions  are  not 
facts,  even  though  many  of  us  think  so  deeply  that  our 
thoughts  impress  us  as  facts.  We  may  have  known  John 
Smith  for  ten  years  and  be  willing  to  swear  that  he  never 
drank  a  drop  and  then  suddenly  discover  that  he  drank 
regularly,  but  at  home.  In  the  same  way  we  form  opinions 
in  the  shop  from  only  half  the  information. 

A  system  of  open  records  by  which  every  man's  industrial 
history  could  be  known  would  no  doubt  be  a  handicap  to  a 
few.  There  are  men,  however,  who  have  had  bad  spots  in 
their  past  records  and  have  lived  them  down.  Indeed,  there 
are  but  few  men  who  have  not  done  something  that  they 
do  not  like  to  have  advertised  from  the  housetops.  Our  an- 
cestors came  here  to  get  a  fresh  start,  and  most  families  who 
investigate  the  records  of  their  ancestors  find  accounts  of  men 
that  should  have  been  hung,  and  often  some  that  were. 

If  it  were  not  for  the  great  expense  of  "breaking  in"  men, 
it  might  seem  that  it  would  be  best  to  hire  men  on  their 
record  as  given  by  themselves,  but  employment  records  seem 
to  indicate  that  more  men  were  mistaken  in  accepting  a  given 
job  than  their  employers  were  in  selecting  them.  During  the 
war  from  ten  to  twenty  men  left  their  jobs  voluntarily  to  every 
one  that  was  "fired."  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  workmen 
have  more  cause  to  object  to  the  meager  information  that  they 
can  get  about  a  job  before  they  take  it  than  employers  have 
to  bewail  the  inaccuracy  of  the  information  they  get  about 
candidates  for  a  job.  On  both  sides  it  seems  to  be  a  case 
of  "try  it  and  see."  The  employee,  however,  is  guaranteed  his 
wages  during  the  trial  period  but  the  employer  is  not  guaran- 
teed production,  and  usually  does  not  get  it.  The  workman 
who  leaves  a  good  job  to  take  one  that  is  represented  to  him 
as  better  has  no  redress  if  he  finds  he  was  mistaken. 

The  solution  of  the  whole  problem  is  perfectly  simple  but 


—  122  — 

not  at  all  likely.  It  is  direct,  straightforward  honesty  of 
thought  and  action.  Whenever  we  reach  the  point  where  we 
decide  to  tell  nothing  about  men  that  we  could  not  go  into 
court  and  prove ;  when  we  are  willing  to  state  facts  and  let  the 
listener  form  his  own  opinions;  when  we  are  willing  to  see 
men  rise  above  their  former  selves  and  to  help  them  forget 
that  part  of  the  past  that  we  would  like  to  forget  with  them, 
then  we  can  get  along  without  any  system  of  records  from 
one  shop  to  another,  and  we  will  be  much  more  ready  to  ask 
candidates  for  jobs  to  be  equally  frank  with  us. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  notice,  and  liberal  notice,  should 
be  given  by  either  party  to  a  change.  Employment  is  a  con- 
tract, and  it  should  be  a  contract  not  broken  except  by  mutual 
consent.  It  is  just  as  bad  for  an  employer  to  discharge  or 
"lay  off"  men  without  notice  as  it  is  for  men  to  leave  in  the 
same  way.  How  long  a  notice  should  be  given  depends  upon 
conditions.  There  is  a  legal  fiction  to  which  no  one  pays  any 
attention,  that  the  notice  should  be  equal  to  the  time  between 
payments;  if  wages  are  paid  weekly  a  week's  notice,  or  if 
semi-monthly  payments  are  made  then  the  notice  should  be 
correspondingly  lengthened.  This,  however,  is  hardly  a  fair 
basis.  The  real  basis  should  be  the  facility  with  which  either 
party  can  again  place  himself  in  as  good  a  position.  It  may  be 
that  the  labor  market  is  overstocked  and  the  employer  can 
get  a  man  with  less  trouble  than  the  man  who  is  leaving  can 
get  a  job,  or  the  reverse  may  be  true.  For  the  sake  of  the 
community  as  a  whole  no  man  ought  to  be  out  of  a  job  and  no 
job  should  be  left  unfilled.  This  necessitates  a  complete  un- 
derstanding between  workmen  and  employers  which  can  never 
exist  if  short  notices  prevail.  It  is  entirely  possible  to  imagine 
a  tribunal  before  which  those  who  are  unable  to  agree  on  these 
matters  may  present  their  cases  so  as  to  have  the  benefit  of 
disinterested  opinion.  The  best  concern  to  work  for  in  the 
eyes  of  workmen,  other  things  being  equal,  is  one  which  assists 
their  men  to  find  another  job  before  they  leave.  This  is  not 
Utopian,  for  it  is  done  and  done  very  quietly  and  effectively 
in  more  than  one  establishment  of  national  reputation. 

So  far  as  references  and  the  looking  up  of  past  records  are 
concerned  there  are  a  few  questions  that  are  legitimate  to 


—  123  — 

ask.  For  example,  if  a  candidate  states  that  he  worked  for 
the  Jones  Manufacturing  Company  for  three  years  it  is  proper 
to  expect  that  their  records  will  be  sufficiently  complete,  or 
their  memories  clear  enough,  so  that  they  can  confirm  or 
deny  his  report  and  tell  approximately  what  his  duties  were. 
If  he  were  there  three  years  and  worked  at  a  task  similar  to 
that  required  in  the  new  shop  he  may  very  likely  be  a  good 
man  to  hire,  even  though  his  last  foreman  condemns  him  as 
being  utterly  worthless.  In  other  words,  the  fact  that  he 
remained  three  years  shows  either  that  he  was  a  good  man 
or  else  that  the  foreman  was  so  stupid  in  not  discovering  his 
faults  until  the  end  of  three  years  that  his  opinion  in  any 
matter  may  well  be  questioned. 

The  records  of  employers'  associations  are  also  used  by 
some,  and  if  these  records  are  honestly  and  faithfully  kept 
they  should  give  a  fairly  complete  industrial  history  of  the 
man  who  remains  in  one  community.  If  studied  they  may 
show  that  a  considerable  group  of  men  have  a  sort  of  estab- 
lished route.  First  they  work  for  A  and  draw  good  money  at 
piece  rates  until  they  get  tired;  then  they  go  to  work  for  B 
where  the  work  is  easy  and  the  pay  light;  then  it  approaches 
tax  time  or  vacation  or  Christmas  and  money  is  needed,  and 
so  they  go  to  work  for  C  who  maintains  an  average  shop,  but 
ultimately  return  to  A  again  when  the  absolute  need  of  re- 
plenishing their  exchequer  is  upon  them.  These  routes  are 
very  natural  ones  and  can  only  be  avoided  when  employers 
standardize  their  jobs  in  terms  of  mental  and  physical  fatigue, 
and  pay  accordingly.  It  will  also  save  teaching  a  large-  num- 
ber of  employees  several  vocations.  These  association  records 
are  often  vitiated  by  the  presence  of  the  opinions  of  foremen, 
but  so  far  as  facts  go  they  are  valuable  in  that  they  show  the 
trend  of  affairs  and  thus  give  employers  a  chance  to  study 
the  effect  of  their  own  shortcomings  rather  than  to  rail  at 
the  supposed  stealing  of  their  competitors. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
FOLLOW-UP  IN  THE  SHOP 

ONCE  a  man  is  hired  he  is  very  likely  to  be  left  to  his  own 
resources  and  so  allowed  to  "sink  or  swim."  Some  fore- 
men build  and  some  destroy,  and  good  employment  manage- 
ment either  gets  rid  of  the  destructive  foreman  or  else  supplies 
him  with  help  not  worth  training  by  other  and  more  compe- 
tent foremen.  But  no  matter  how  good  the  selection  and  dis- 
tribution of  men  there  is  always  a  considerable  number  who 
will  hide  their  light  under  a  bushel,  unless  they  are  encouraged. 
Chief  among  such  are  the  men  who  are  "licked,"  the  men  who 
have  lost  their  grip,  the  men  who  are  afraid.  There  are  also 
men  whose  shop  life  is  a  constant  fear  of  ridicule,  of  fault-find- 
ing, and  of  expectation  of  discharge,  and  these  men  do  not 
dare  to  do  their  best  because  of  the  fear  that  they  will  spoil 
the  work.  In  fact,  most  of  these  troubles  are  the  result  of 
fear.  The  men  are  usually  not  fearful  for  themselves,  but 
for  their  dependents,  and  so  they  hold  their  jobs  long  after 
they  should,  because  they  cannot  see  how  their  wives  and 
children  can  possibly  exist  without  the  particular  job  which 
they  then  hold. 

Follow-up  in  the  shop  is  dependent  upon  a  knowledge  of 
the  way  in  which  each  man  spends  his  money.  The  young 
fellow  who  sends  nothing  home  to  his  parents  and  who  has 
no  wife  seldom  fears  the  foremen  and  in  general  for  that  rea- 
son many  foremen  prefer  the  married  man  because  he  will 
stand  bullying.  Follow-up  in  the  shop  should  also  include 
an  exact  knowledge  of  each  man's  actual  performance,  his 
attendance,  his  tardiness,  his  production,  and  all  his  increases 
in  pay  and  changes  from  job  to  job.  Then,  when  the  foreman 
charges  him  with  spoiling  a  job  or  unreliability,  there  is  the 

124 


—  125  — 

record  day  by  day  to  prove  or  disprove  it;  and  it  often  shows 
not  that  the  man  has  changed  from  the  steady  production 
of  years  but  that  the  foreman  has  changed.  When  a  man's 
records  show  steady  production,  repeated  increases  in  pay, 
and  steady  attendance,  the  foreman's  allegation  that  he  "never 
was  any  good  anyway"  falls  rather  flat.  Without  the  records, 
however,  the  man's  defence  is  worthless  against  the  word  of 
the  foreman. 

The  follow-up  in  the  shop  should  not  consist  entirely  of 
paper-work  showing  men's  records,  but  it  should  be  a  matter 
of  acquaintance  with  all  his  difficulties.  Much  of  this  is 
automatic.  When  the  employment  department  takes  over  the 
hiring  of  help,  every  foreman  instinctively  feels  at  liberty  to 
mention  the  shortcomings  of  the  men  hired  by  that  depart- 
ment, and  in  this  way  and  without  any  system  of  forms  for 
complaints  the  employment  department,  or  at  least  its  travel- 
ing members,  get  a  first-hand  opportunity  to  straighten  out 
many  troubles.  On  the  other  hand  the  men  who  come  in 
through  the  employment  department  feel  that  the  department 
is  responsible  for  everything  that  the  shop  does  differently 
from  what  they  imagined  it  would,  and  so  they  bring  in  their 
grievances  long  before  they  would  ever  think  of  saying  any- 
thing to  the  foreman  about  them. 

The  very  formation  of  an  employment  department  thus 
establishes  follow-up  in  the  shop  whether  it  is  intended  to 
or  not,  and  a  follow-up  which  cannot  be  neglected.  This  very 
fact  also  makes  it  quite  necessary  to  "have  men  of  maturity  of 
judgment  and  experience  in  the  employment  department,  in- 
stead of  the  boys  one  is  apt  to  find,  for  such  men  act  as 
mediators  and  often  reduce  the  complaints  and  counter-com- 
plaints to  bare  facts.  Every  possible  kind  of  complaint  will 
be  made  and  the  management  will  hear  that  Foreman  Smith 
will  not  show  the  men  what  to  do ;  that  John  won't  do  the  work 
he  is  told  to  do ;  that  Foreman  Parker  plays  favorites  and  will 
not  give  good  work  to  any  one  else;  or  that  racial  prejudice 
counts  too  much.  A  great  many  of  the  complaints  such  as 
these  are  really  based  on  policy  and  can  only  be  decided  by 
the  company  itself  or  by  its  general  manager.  If  it  has  been 
the  experience  of  years  that  men  of  a  certain  nationality  are 


—  126  — 

better  'adapted  to  do  a  certain  job  than  others,  the  prejudice 
cannot  be  broken  down  over  night.  If  men  of  other  races 
are  put  on  the  job  it  will  be  only  to  do  the  minor  tasks  and 
they  will  find  it  unjust.  Of  course  it  is  unjust,  but  as  long 
as  the  foreman  knows  that  he  will  not  be  discharged  he  will 
continue  the  practice.  Such  matters  cannot  be  settled  by 
the  employment  department  but  must  go  to  the  management, 
and  there  is  no  one  but  the  employment  department  to  see 
that  they  get  there. 

Many  times  difficulties  of  a  more  formidable  nature  can  be 
settled  without  appeal.  Workmen  are  apt  to  make  nasty 
remarks  when  angered.  They  realize  the  futility  of  appeal  so 
when  they  get  to  the  point  of  desperation  they  "blow  up" 
violently.  That  starts  a  flood  of  recrimination  which  can  only 
be  stopped  either  by  the  intervention  of  the  employment  de- 
partment or  through  sheer  weariness.  Inasmuch  as  both  sides 
are  generally  right  in  agreeing  that  the  other  side  is  wrong, 
there  usually  results  a  "cooling  off"  and  a  shaking  of  hands 
over  it  when  the  whole  affair  is  steered  by  a  tactful  man  who  is 
not  afraid  of  telling  both  parties  where  they  made  their  mis- 
takes. Every  complaint  should  therefore  be  run  down  no 
matter  how  obvious  its  cause  may  seem  to  be,  for  there  is 
always  the  chance  that  some  new  root  of  discontent  may  be 
discovered. 

One  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  of  the  employment  manager 
is  to  get  at  the  real  cause  of  a  man's  leaving,  or  the  reason 
why  he  is  out  looking  for  another  job.  It  has  been  said  that 
language  was  given  to  man  wherewith  to  conceal  his  thoughts 
and  it  seems  true  in  the  follow-up  office.  Some  men  do  not 
want  to  talk  at  all  on  the  score  that  "the  least  said  the  soonest 
mended."  They  realize  that  the  next  job  may  not  be  as  good 
as  they  hope  and  they  want  to  pave  the  way  for  a  possible 
return,  and  so  they  claim  that  they  are  going  to  get  more 
money  when  the  real  reason  is  that  they  think  that  they  are 
not  getting  a  square  deal.  The  range  of  concealment  runs 
clear  through  to  the  man  who  thinks  he  can  get  back  at  his 
foreman  by  making  charges  which  he  will  not  have  to  stay 
and  substantiate,  and  if  he  therefore  knows  it  is  difficult  to 
get  his  final  pay  without  appearing  in  the  follow-up  office 


—  127  — 

where  he  is  expected  to  hear  the  other  side  of  the  story,  he  is 
not  so  likely  to  stretch  his  own. 

It  is  most  important  that  each  man's  records  be  kept  to- 
gether in  such  a  way  that  his  full  industrial  history,  so  far  as 
it  is  known,  is  available  at  once.  This  should  include  all  the 
data  which  the  employment  department  has  secured,  all  the 
records  of  the  medical  department  and  the  accident  depart- 
ment, changes  in  work  and  pay,  attendance,  piece-work  earn- 
ings week  by  week,  bonuses,  etc.  It  should  also  be  known 
whether  the  man  is  engaged  in  any  of  the  welfare  activities 
such  as  bands,  gardening,  athletics,  etc.,  and  with  these  records 
any  man  who  desires  promotion,  or  whose  foreman  wants  to 
get  rid  of  him,  can  be  assured  that  his  case  will  be  decided  on 
facts  rather  than  on  snap  judgment.  A  man  whose  work  is 
falling  off  may  be  partly  excused  and  partly  given  encourage- 
ment if  it  is  found  that  there  was  a  new  arrival  in  his  family 
about  the  time  that  the  taxes  on  his  house  came  due.  He 
may  need  a  helping  hand  more  than  he  needs  a  reprimand. 
It  is  also  often  bothersome  for  a  department  to  send  to  a 
general  file  room  for  a  man's  records,  and  yet  when  they  do 
get  them  such  records  may  prove  to  be  of  great  value.  It 
may  be  found,  for  example,  that  the  man  who  is  continually 
having  minor  accidents  may  be  having  a  run  of  absences  from 
the  shop  and  it  may  also  be  discovered  that  he  is  having  some 
quiet  little  drunks,  or  it  may  be  discovered  that  he  is  laboring 
under  some  unusual  or  excessive  burdens  at  home  and  that 
his  mental  state  is  such  that  he  ought  not  to  be  working  where 
a  false  step  might  jeopardize  his  own  or  others'  safety.  Then 
again,  if  one  of  the  higher  officers  of  the  company  becomes 
interested  in  an  employee  it  is  very  much  more  satisfactory 
for  him  to  have  a  complete  record  of  the  man,  rather  than 
to  have  to  ask  a  dozen  different  people  for  the  information. 

If  these  records  are  complete  there  will  immediately  be  a 
great  demand  for  them  from  all  officials  who  have  occasion  to 
deal  with  labor  matters;  and  there  will  be  great  temptation 
to  take  off  innumerable  statistics  (and  usually  very  expensive 
ones)  to  satisfy  men  higher  up  in  the  organization.  Some 
official  may  make  a  guess  that  the  greatest  number  of  absences 
occur  in  some  one  nationality  or  that  certain  districts  of  the 


—  128  — 

city  show  the  most  tardiness  due  to  the  service  rendered  by 
the  trolley  company,  or  that  the  proximity  of  saloons  is  what 
makes  the  labor  turnover  high  in  certain  groups  of  men.  All 
these  questions  are  of  interest  and  their  answers  valuable, 
but  even  with  complete  records  it  is  always  expensive  work 
to  undertake.  The  wise  employment  manager  therefore  in- 
vites the  department  which  wants  the  statistics  to  come  and 
get  them  at  their  own  expense,  merely  opening  the  file  room 
to  them  for  that  purpose. 

This  brings  up  another  topic  which  is  inevitable  with  a 
central  file  room,  and  that  is  the  fact  that  it  is  impossible  to 
keep  wage  rates  secret.  Rates  can  of  course  be  kept  in  cypher, 
but  some  one  must  know  the  cypher  and  as  soon  as  some  one 
knows  it  every  one  usually  knows  it.  There  is,  however,  no 
more  risk  in  the  employment  department  than  there  is  in  the 
paymaster's  department  or  the  cost  department.  The  differ- 
ence is  that  the  employment  department  is  so  much  nearer 
the  men,  and  so  much  more  approachable,  that  men  discover 
more  than  they  otherwise  would.  In  most  cases,  however,  this 
is  desirable,  for  it  is  much  better  that  every  one  should  know 
the  truth  rather  than  guess  for  guesses  are  sure  to  be  partly 
wrong.  There  is  no  use  falling  back  on  the  theory  that  each 
agreement  with  each  man  is  an  inviolable  secret  for  it  cannot 
be  kept  so  after  it  has  once  been  made.  In  fact,  the  day  of 
secret  business  agreements  is  rapidly  going,  for  at  present  there 
is  little  that  is  done  which  is  not  in  some  way  the  concern 
of  a  great  many  people. 

Such  being  the  case,  it  is  also  proper  for  a  concern  to  in- 
quire into  certain  habits  of  its  employees,  in  other  words,  there 
should  be  follow-up  outside  the  shop  as  well  as  within. 
Usually  an  employer  is  in  an  excellent  position  to  know  the 
effect  of  the  man's  outside  life  on  his  productive  powers.  If 
a  man  throws  away  his  ability  to  produce  by  his  dissipations, 
by  too  little  sleep,  by  too  much  worry,  or  by  too  much  fear, 
it  shows  plainly  in  his  work,  and  if  his  employer  knows  what 
is  at  the  bottom  of  the  loss  of  productive  capacity  he  can  help 
to  remedy  it.  If  it  is  dissipation  he  can  at  least  advise  and 
admonish.  If  it  is  too  little  sleep  he  can  discover  whether 
it  is  caused  by  dancing,  theaters,  movies,  or  by  overambitious 


—  129  — 

study,  and  then  act  accordingly.  If  it  is  worry  he  can  help 
remove  the  cause;  and  if  it  is  fear,  usually  fear  of  financial 
loss,  he  can  help  remove  that  also. 

All  this  implies  an  intimacy  of  contact  which  is  not  usual. 
When  shops  were  small  such  matters  were  known  to  the 
owners,  now  they  may  be  known  to  the  foreman,  but  the  fore- 
man can  hardly  be  said  to  represent  them.  Nor  can  a  poorly 
paid  social  service  secretary  fill  the  place  for  a  "hired  man" 
cannot  represent  the  management.  The  representative  of  the 
management  must  be  some  one  who  is  prosperous  and  who 
looks  the  part.  He  should  live  well  but  not  ostentatiously. 
He  should  be  known  to  have  carried  a  dinner  pail  and  earned 
his  own  living  at  day  wages.  In  other  words,  he  should  not 
only  look  the  part  and  act  the  part,  but  he  must  be  the  part. 
He  need  not  be  handsome,  in  fact,  better  not  so,  because  some 
husbands  are  jealous  and  he  must  call  at  homes  when  hus- 
bands may  be  away.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Theodore  Roose- 
velt would  have  made  excellent  follow-up  men;  in  fact,  they 
were  follow-up  men  for  the  whole  country. 

So  far,  perhaps  all  will  agree,  but  not  much  further.  Some 
say  that  the  relation  should  be  purely  and  definitely  business, 
others  that  it  should  be  social.  The  first  send  out  a  follow-up 
man  when  one  of  their  employees  is  out  to  see  if  he  is  sick  or 
drunk  and  his  report  ends  the  case.  The  second  keeps  full 
knowledge  of  the  man's  social  conditions,  increases  in  family, 
deaths,  marriages,  moving  from  house  to  house,  division  of 
expenditures,  etc.  The  first  looks  at  its  men  as  number  so- 
and-so,  or  more  charitably  it  looks  on  them  as  independent 
thinking  units  entitled  to  independence  and  not  needing  cod- 
dling. The  second  group  knows  how  to  live  and  how  to  spend 
its  money  and  it  will  not  rest  until  it  has  everybody  following 
the  straight  and  narrow  path  of  thrift  and  economy.  It  does 
not  realize  that  what  is  "one  man's  meat  is  another  man's 
poison"  but  prescribes  the  same  for  all. 

The  best  path,  as  usual,  may  be  found  somewhere  between 
the  two.  A  good  follow-up  man  soon  sees  enough  of  the 
seamy  side  of  life  to  realize  that  some  measure  of  happiness 
is  possible  for  those  who  do  not  live  according  to  the  tenets 
of  the  so-called  middle  class.  He  soon  learns  that  standards 


—  130  — 

of  living  are  matters  of  habit  and  custom.  He  finds  it  difficult 
to  draw  the  exact  line  between  picking  wild  grapes  by  the 
roadside  and  jumping  the  wall  to  reach  those  around  which 
some  enterprising  farmer  has  built  a  fence.  To  be  sure,  we 
would  like  to  bring  all  our  friends  from  foreign  shores  to  think 
as  we  do,  but  they  also  would  like  to  have  us  think  their  way. 
Our  own  history  is  such  a  development  and  change  from  Puri- 
tan times  that  we  cannot  possibly  hold  ourselves  up  as  models 
to  others. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
ATTENDANCE 

THERE  are  many  factors  which  affect  shop  attendance 
and  some  of  them  can  be  influenced  and  even  very 
largely  controlled  by  the  employment  department.  The  prin- 
cipal factor  is  the  intangible  one  of  spirit  or  shop  morale.  This 
is  naturally  dependent  upon  many  other  factors,  but  it  can  un- 
questionably be  maintained  if  the  shop  is  a  popular  one,  if 
the  men  working  together  are  congenial,  if  the  foremen  treat 
every  one  alike,  if  the  management  does  not  hold  itself  too 
far  aloof,  and  so  on  through  the  whole  list  of  things  which 
affect  labor  turnover  and  which  keep  men  in  a  friendly  mood. 

Possibly  the  most  active  factor  that  affects  attendance  is 
what  might  be  called  the  social  side  of  affairs.  If  a  congenial 
lot  of  people  come  to  work  every  day  on  the  same  trolley 
car,  or  walk  down  the  same  street,  it  is  much  easier  to  be  on 
time  than  it  is  to  stay  out  or  to  be  late,  and  the  further 
such  workers  have  to  come  the  more  regular  is  their  attend- 
ance. It  is  of  interest  to  note  in  this  connection  that  such  a 
fact  is  the  opposite  of  that  in  the  case  of  labor  turnover,  as 
the  lowest  labor  turnover  is  among  those  living  near  the  shop. 
The  long  distance  traveler  must  catch  a  certain  car  or  be 
very  late,  and  consequently  his  entire  family  soon  become 
accustomed  to  his  regular  departure. 

Another  very  large  factor  is  the  attention  which  is  paid 
by  the  firm  to  absences  and  tardiness.  If  men  find  that  their 
staying  out  or  coming  in  late  makes  no  difference,  and  that 
nothing  is  said  about  it,  they  find  it  easier  to  repeat  the  act 
again.  Most  men  have  a  certain  amount  of  conscience  about 
such  matters  and  they  wish  to  please,  but  if  they  find  that  no 
one  is  concerned  at  their  absence,  they  simply  say,  "The  old 

131 


—  132  — 

place  ran  before  I  came  here  and  I  guess  it  will  run  if  I  stay 
away."  A  very  strict  foreman  gets  good  results  as  the  men 
soon  find  that  it  is  easier  to  arrange  in  advance  for  absences 
than  it  is  to  go  and  talk  with  him  about  it  afterward.  If  there 
is  proper  supervision  by  the  employment  department,  and 
every  man  knows  that  he  will  have  a  chance  to  explain  every 
absence  and  every  tardiness,  then  there  will  be  a  decided  fall- 
ing off  in  both.  This,  however,  depends  on  the  keeping  of 
good  records.  Most  shops  have  some  sort  of  daily  or  semi- 
daily  reports  which  the  foremen  or  timekeepers  are  supposed 
to  fill  out  and  return  to  the  office.  In  shops  where  use  is 
made  of  these  records  there  is  no  trouble  keeping  them,  but 
just  as  soon  as  a  foreman  finds  that  a  record  which  he  forgot 
to  send  in  was  not  called  for,  he  feels  that  he  need  not  be 
particular  and  from  then  on  he  makes  them  out  only  when 
he  has  time. 

Almost  all  of  both  absence  and  lateness  is  purely  per- 
sonal, only  a  very  small  percentage  being  entirely  unavoidable. 
The  personal  absences  divide  themselves  about  equally  be- 
tween social  and  business  necessities ;  if  weddings  and  funerals 
are  granted  to  be  social,  and  shopping,  paying  bills,  and  cash- 
ing checks  are  considered  business.  For  example,  a  man  buys 
a  house.  He  has  made  all  his  investigations  Saturday  after- 
noons and  Sundays,  but  when  it  comes  to  the  actual  securing 
of  the  mortgage  and  the  passing  of  the  deed  he  must  go  to 
the  bank  and  the  courthouse  when  they  are  open  and  will 
transact  business  with  him,  for  they  make  their  hours  for  the 
convenience  of  the  greatest  numbers.  To  be  sure,  there  are 
banks  which  are  open  evenings,  but  generally  no  one  is  present 
who  can  make  loans.  If  the  shop  is  a  little  out  of  town  the 
simple  cashing  of  a  check  also  means  loss  of  working  time. 

It  also  quite  frequently  happens  that  the  man  who  wishes 
to  buy  fertilizer,  seeds,  or  garden  tools  finds  that  the  hardware 
and  seed  stores  are  closed  on  Saturday  afternoons.  All  this 
has  been  brought  about  by  laxity  in  the  shops  and  the  ease 
with  which  men  can  get  away  on  a  reasonable  excuse.  The 
shops  have  simply  let  the  stores  and  banks  impose  on  them  by 
the  creation  of  a  Saturday  half  holiday.  The  stores  naturally 
welcome  the  half  holiday  because  it  transfers  considerable 


—  133  — 

shopping  from  men  to  women,  and  stores  always  prefer  the 
female  shopper  because  the  male  shopper  goes  to  buy  a  defi- 
nite article  but  his  wife  is  at  least  tempted  to  stop  and  look. 
One  thing,  however,  can  be  done  by  the  shop  and  that  is  to 
attend  to  banking  matters  for  its  employees.  That  is,  they 
can  arrange  for  the  cashing  of  checks  and  the  deposits  of 
money  and  checks  in  the  local  banks.  They  probably  will  not 
be  asked  to  attend  to  the  securing  of  loans,  but  that  only  comes 
once  or  twice  in  the  lifetime  of  most  men. 

Attention  to  this  matter  of  absence  and  lateness  will 
raise  shop  attendance  in  some  cases  from  90  per  cent  to  95 
per  cent,  and  this  increase  will  easily  add  about  5  per  cent  to 
the  productive  capacity  of  the  shop  without  adding  anything 
to  the  overhead  charges  so  that  in  the  long  run  attendance 
is  an  important  factor.  Many  of  the  social  absences  are  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  wife  has  discovered  that  nothing  happens 
when  she  makes  an  engagement  which  necessitates  her  hus- 
band being  absent  Monday  morning,  and  so,  whenever  it  is 
convenient,  she  arranges  a  visit  over  Sunday  and  plans  to  re- 
main until  Monday  morning,  and  naturally  she  includes 
hubby  in  the  invitation. 

The  machinery  for  accomplishing  results  is  very  simple. 
A  ruled  card  with  a  line  for  every  month,  cut  by  vertical  lines 
for  each  day  in  the  month,  and  a  card  for  every  man  arranged 
alphabetically  or  by  number  according  as  the  daily  absence 
reports  are  made  by  name  or  number.  A  girl  to  obtain  the 
information  over  the  telephone  is  also  necessary,  and  she 
enters  upon  each  man's  record,  as  the  information  is  received, 
whether  the  absence  was  for  business,  social,  or  illness,  and 
the  latenesses  the  same  way.  In  case  an  absence  runs  over 
two  days  or  three  days,  as  the  custom  of  the  shop  dictates,  she 
makes  a  note  for  the  outside  follow-up  man  to  investigate. 
If  the  absence  is  given  as  sickness  she  notifies  the  hospital. 
When  the  man  is  reported  back  she  gets  him  on  the  phone 
if  he  can  talk  English  and  finds  out  his  version  of  why  he 
was  out.  If  she  cannot  obtain  a  satisfactory  reply  in  this 
way  she  notifies  the  inside  follow-up  department  and  they 
investigate  and  report  in  turn  to  her.  These  cards  after  a 
period  of  six  months  show  some  rather  interesting  facts. 


—  134  — 

They  usually  show  first  of  all  that  almost  the  entire  force  is 
very  constant  in  its  attendance,  and  that  the  great  bulk  of 
the  absences  are  by  only  a  few  people.  The  cards  also  usually 
show  that  the  largest  part  of  these  absences  were  due  to 
social  reasons,  that  legitimate  business  took  the  next  largest 
number,  and  that  sickness  kept  least  of  all  away. 

The  company  also  obtains  considerable  valuable  informa- 
tion. It  may  find  that  a  valuable  man  is  staying  home  with 
a  sick  wife  because  he  cannot  raise  the  cash  to  hire  a  nurse. 
It  is  cheaper  for  the  company  to  finance  him  than  to  have 
him  stay  away.  Or  a  man  may  be  having  difficulty  in  holding 
his  house,  a  mortgagee  may  be  trying  to  collect  and  the  man 
may  be  having  a  hard  and  futile  search  for  money.  The 
company  may  be  able  to  put  him  on  the  track  of  it  in  a  few 
minutes,  or  it  may  prove  to  him  that  his  equity  is  worthless 
and  advise  him  to  let  it  go.  And  so  it  often  happens  that 
by  a  company  taking  a  businesslike  and  at  the  same  time 
friendly  interest  in  their  men's  absences  they  may  discover 
many  things  which  they  ought  to  know  and  in  which  they  can 
be  of  real  help.  Thus  the  secrets,  if  there  are  any,  of  a  high 
attendance  record  are  merely  to  furnish  an  attractive  place  in 
which  to  work  and  to  show  an  interest  in  the  men  who  work 
there. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
TRANSFERS 

THERE  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  shop,  the  workman,  and 
the  community  are  best  served  when  every  man  is  work- 
ing where  he  is  most  productive  and  most  happy.  It  would 
also  seem  that  this  is  so  necessary  that  no  one  would  allow 
selfish  motives  to  interfere  with  the  moving  about  of  men 
from  one  job  to  another,  and  yet  the  question  of  transfers  is 
one  of  the  most  difficult  problems  that  the  employment  man- 
ager must  solve. 

Suppose,  for  example,  there  is  a  man  in  Mill  A  who  is 
very  efficient  and  Mill  B  is  short  of  such  men.  It  would  seem 
the  only  sensible  thing  to  do  is  to  transfer  the  man  from  Mill  A 
to  Mill  B.  But  no,  the  superintendent  of  Mill  A  will  protest 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  and  propose  to  substitute  the  poorest 
worker  he  has.  He  feels  a  property  right  and  pleads  that 
possession  is  nine  points  of  the  law.  This  man  is  his  man  and 
he  will  throw  up  his  job  if  he  cannot  keep  him.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  by  any  chance  the  superintendent  of  Mill  A  is  willing 
to  make  the  transfer,  the  superintendent  of  Mill  B  at  once 
"smells  a  rat"  and  will  not  take  any  of  the  cast-offs  of  Mill  A. 
The  real  trouble  is,  of  course,  that  neither  superintendent 
has  confidence  in  the  management  and  both  are  so  selfish 
that  they  will  neither  of  them  cooperate  for  the  best  interest 
of  the  company. 

There  is,  however,  a  chance  for  argument  on  the  first  point. 
Every  superintendent  and  every  foreman  ought  to  be  a  very 
good  judge  of  the  men  in  his  organization  and  both  ought  to 
be  well  enough  acquainted  with  their  men  so  that  they  can 
judge  of  their  fitness  for  their  present  or  other  jobs.  Therefore, 
if  the  general  manager  tries  to  get  them  together  they  both 

135 


—  136  — 

feel  that  he  is  stepping  out  of  his  part.  On  the  dther  hand, 
if  the  employment  manager  asks  the  right  to  transfer  men  for 
the  best  interest  of  the  company  he  also  meets  with  opposition, 
on  the  ground  that  he  is  not  in  a  position  to  know  as  much 
about  the  men  or  the  need  of  men  as  the  different  department 
heads.  If  the  employment  manager  admits  the  first  part  of 
this  allegation  he  ought  to  throw  up  his  job,  and  if  he  has  to 
admit  the  second  part  it  must  be  because  he  is  not  sufficiently 
in  the  confidence  of  the  management  to  know. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  almost  every  case  the  employment 
manager  is  the  only  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  situation 
and  who  is  disinterested  enough  to  make  such  a  decision.  If 
it  could  be  generally  understood  that  men  are  hired  to  work 
for  a  concern  and  not  a  department,  but  that  for  the  time 
being  they  are  assigned  to  different  departments  because  it  is 
thought  that  they  will  be  most  effective  there,  then  it  might 
be  easier  to  make  these  transfers.  As  it  is,  with  each  foreman 
and  head  of  a  department  standing  on  his  dignity  as  a  little 
czar  enthroned  there  to  rule  without  question,  transfers  are 
often  impossible.  If,  however,  the  department  head  is  not 
supreme,  if  the  management  controls  their  plant  and  the 
foremen  work  for  the  best  interests  of  the  company,  transfers 
will  then  be  made  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  all  depends  on 
the  relative  position  of  foremen,  managers,  and  employment 
department.  It  often  comes  back  to  the  understanding  ex- 
isting between  foremen  and  the  firm  when  they  are  hired. 

In  many  places  the  only  restrictions  on  the  foremen's 
actions  are  those  based  on  his  failure  to  produce  a  given 
amount  of  goods  for  a  given  cost.  As  long  as  he  obtains  the 
prescribed  production  he  may  break  all  the  ten  command- 
ments and  any  man-made  laws  as  well.  In  other  words,  the 
shop  is  turned  over  to  subordinates  to  run  as  they  please,  pro- 
vided the  immediate  returns  are  great  enough.  The  general 
manager  in  such  a  place  has  supervision  over  the  sales  and 
accounts,  but  is  seldom  seen  in  the  shop. 

What  is  he  to  do  if  he  makes  up  his  mind  that  the  conduct 
of  the  shop,  where  most  of  the  money  is  disbursed,  is  part  of 
his  job  as  manager?  He  finds,  first  of  all,  that  this  problem 
of  transfers  is  the  most  delicate  of  all  the  problems  that  con- 


—  137  — 

front  the  introduction  of  employment  management.  If  he  is 
of  the  non-resistant  diplomatic  type  he  will  refuse  to  hear  of 
any  of  the  harmful  practices  that  this  lack  of  cooperation  in 
the  shop  brings,  and  the  employment  department  will  conse- 
quently make  no  transfers.  The  foremen  will  of  course  "swap 
help"  as  before  and  in  much  the  same  way  that  baseball 
players  are  treated,  the  consideration  being  some  favor  for 
the  foreman  who  takes  the  short  end  of  the  trade  and  every- 
thing except  the  workmen's  rights  and  the  company's  inter- 
ests will  be  well  guarded. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  general  manager  is  of  the  type 
that  believes  the  shop  will  stand  being  managed  and  profit 
by  it,  he  will  put  this  matter  of  transfers  into  the  hands  of  the 
employment  department  and  he  will  instruct  them  that  as 
one  of  the  cardinal  principles  of  their  work  they  are  to  place 
workmen  where  they  can  be  of  the  most  value  to  themselves. 
Also,  if  they  find  that  they  have  placed  men  in  the  wrong 
places,  or  if  the  conditions  change  in  these  places,  or  if  for 
any  other  reason  the  best  interests  of  the  company  are  served 
by  the  moving  of  men  from  one  place  to  another,  they  are  to 
consider  only  that  best  interest  of  the  company,  provided 
however,  that  nothing  is  to  be  done  without  the  man  and  the 
foreman  or  any  one  else  who  may  be  concerned  having  a 
hearing.  As  a  matter  of  fact  such  hearings  will  seldom  be 
called  as  most  of  the  alleged  reasons  for  not  transferring  men 
come  down  to  purely  personal  ones  that  will  not  stand  pub- 
licity. It  is  not  unusual  for  a  foreman  to  block  a  proposed 
transfer  on  the  ground  that  his  department  will  go  all  to 
pieces  if  the  man  is  taken  away  and  then  in  a  few  days 
"fire"  the  same  man  and  on  the  ground  that  "he  never  was 
any  good  anyway." 

There  is  danger,  of  course,  that  if  the  right  to  transfer  men 
is  placed  directly  in  the  hands  of  the  employment  department 
that  some  foremen  will  resign,  but  it  is  not  at  all  likely  that 
such  will  be  the  case  for  very  few  foremen  like  to  even  think 
that  they  will  have  to  go  back  to  the  bench  or  to  a  machine 
in  another  shop  and  so  work  their  way  up  again.  Jobs  as 
foremen  are  usually  obtained  either  by  promotion  or  by  solici- 
tation on  the  part  of  another  employer  so  that  going  after  a 


—  138  — 

foreman's  job  is  a  rather  uncertain  venture.  The  only  fore- 
men not  likely  to  give  the  employment  departments  handling 
of  transfers  a  fair  trial  are  those  who  happen  to  have  timely 
offers  of  other  jobs  which  in  all  probability  they  would  have 
taken  in  any  event. 

Judging  by  experience  in  other  phases  of  employment 
work  foremen  are  very  glad  to  have  an  employment  depart- 
ment to  which  they  can  "pass  the  buck."  When  things  do 
not  come  out  just  right  it  is  a  great  relief  to  them  to  throw 
up  their  hands  and  say,  "Just  look  at  what  your  employment 
department  sent  down;  how  can  any  one  make  good  with 
that  gang?"  Of  course,  they  do  not  really  mean  all  that  they 
say,  but  it  does  serve  to  create  the  impression  that  they  are 
not  solely  to  blame,  and  this  one  fact,  if  no  other,  is  ample 
proof  of  the  necessity  for  placing  in  charge  of  employment 
work  men  of  wide  experience  and  acquaintance.  No  boy  can 
hold  the  position  with  success,  nor  for  that  matter  can  any 
man,  no  matter  how  capable  he  may  be,  unless  he  has  the  sup- 
port of  the  management. 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE  EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  OFFICE  FORCE 

OFFICE  employment  is  receiving  much  less  attention  than 
shop  employment  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is 
much  less  apparent  pressure  from  high  labor  turnover.  As  a 
rule,  the  general  manager  has  a  better  knowledge  of  the  office 
force  than  of  the  shop  force.  He  is  better  acquainted  with  its 
personnel  for  it  is  much  easier  for  an  office  man  to  get  a  mes- 
sage through  to  the  management  than  for  a  shop  man  to  do 
so.  Then,  too,  office  men  and  women  are  more  apt  to  be  of 
a  stable  type,  less  ambitious  or  willing  to  wait  longer  for  a 
good  opportunity.  Their  vacations  have  a  larger  holding 
power  for  more  changes  take  place  between  September  and 
January  in  offices  where  vacations  are  given  to  those  on  the 
books  January  first  than  during  all  the  other  eight  months  of 
the  year. 

There  is,  however,  ample  opportunity  for  the  office  force 
to  help  earn  dividends.  For  instance,  there  is  very  likely  to 
be  found  in  an  office  in  which  each  department  head  does  his 
own  hiring  and  fixing  of  salaries  a  considerable  discrepancy  in 
the  rates  paid  to  people  of  apparently  similar  qualifications, 
and  an  equally  great  discrepancy  in  rates  of  wage  increase. 
There  is  a  good  reason  for  this,  and  it  lies  in  the  difference  in 
methods  of  management.  One  pays  good  rates  and  raises  sal- 
aries as  often  as  he  can  find  an  excuse.  He  gets  good  results 
if  he  demands  them  and  if  he  so  arranges  his  work  that  there 
is  no  duplication  of  effort.  Another  pays  low  wages  and  only 
gives  increases  grudgingly  and  only  when  a  general  exodus  is 
in  sight.  He  gets  results  by  driving,  for  there  are  always  men 
and  women  who  are  afraid  to  look  for  another  job,  who  have 
little  faith  in  their  ability  to  sell  their  services,  and  who  will 

139 


—  140  — 

stand  up  and  work  under  such  tactics.  The  "driver"  usually 
claims,  and  he  honestly  believes,  that  all  people  are  of  this 
class.  He  is  borne  out  in  his  views  by  the  fact  that  only 
that  type  apply  to  him  for  a  job  after  his  methods  once 
become  well  known  and  he  therefore  has  no  chance  to  observe 
the  willing  and  ambitious  worker. 

Such  conditions  as  these  present  excellent  opportunities 
for  the  employment  manager  to  apply  the  identical  principles 
which  he  does  in  the  shop.  He  can  prevent  the  heart-burn- 
ing jealousies  which  must  of  necessity  prevail  where  one 
group  of  people  are  plainly  treated  differently  than  another. 
He  can  at  least  insist  on  similar  increase  in  pay  and  at  similar 
intervals.  He  can  also  apply  tests  which  will  conclusively 
define  each  stenographer's  ability,  and  the  same  can  be  done 
in  the  case  of  those  who  use  various  other  types  of  machines. 
Entry  clerks  can  likewise  be  standardized  as  to  the  difficulty 
of  the  work  each  can  do  and,  if  necessary,  transfers  from  de- 
partment to  department  made  until  each  worker  is  doing  the 
highest  grade  of  work  of  which  he  or  she  is  capable. 

The  machinery  for  conducting  an  office  employment  service 
is  less  cumbersome  than  the  size  of  the  problem  might  indi- 
cate. The  office  force  of  a  manufacturing  concern  will  average 
less  than  ten  per  cent  of  the  total  force,  and  the  turnover  will 
seldom  be  equal  to  even  half  that  of  the  factory,  so  the 
problem  is  usually  about  one-twentieth  of  that  in  the  shop, 
so  far  as  mere  numbers  are  concerned.  There  is,  of  course, 
usually  a  great  deal  more  care  expended  to  secure  the  right 
person  for  the  position  and  the  applicants  are  also  much  more 
anxious  to  make  permanent  connections.  Usually  the  appli- 
cant for  an  office  job  prefers  to  fill  out  an  application  blank 
and  the  size  of  the  blank  seems  to  have  a  real  appeal  to  them. 
It  should  be  a  sheet  of  paper  of  at  least  letter  size  and  prefer- 
ably ledger  size.  It  may  be  desirable  to  .transcribe  the  infor- 
mation on  a  card  for  office  use,  but  it  is  better  to  leave  the 
filling  out  of  the  blank  in  the  hands  of  the  applicant,  if  for 
no  other  reason  than  it  gives  a  good  basis  for  judging  them. 
Most  of  them  fill  out  the  blank  in  rather  poor  fashion. 

The  questions  which  are  asked  may  be  best  directed  more 
toward  determining  mental  ability  rather  than  proficiency  at 


—  141  — 

any  one  thing,  because  the  way  in  which  a  given  unit  of  work 
should  be  done  can  be  taught  to  an  intelligent  person  very 
quickly,  whereas  lack  of  mental  ability  may  prevent  the  pro- 
motion and  transfers  which  make  a  flexible  organization. 
Generally  speaking,  office  applicants  are  also  more  willing 
to  go  into  details  as  to  their  past  history  and  less  inclined 
to  say  what  their  past  earnings  have  been.  They  also  feel 
more  respect  for  the  confidential  nature  of  their  relation  to 
former  employers  and  accordingly  less  inclined  to  make  un- 
favorable statements  even  though  they  may  be  true.  There 
likewise  is  more  inclination  among  them  to  follow  the  line 
on  which  they  have  started.  That  is,  their  careers  are  more 
apt  to  show  continuous  progress,  while  those  of  shop  men 
are  apt  to  be  full  of  complete  changes  of  occupation. 

Girls  are,  of  course,  the  hardest  to  place  in  the  position 
where  they  fit  in  with  the  office  system.  They  will  persist  in 
playing  up  their  sex.  They  make  themselves  very  agreeable 
and  attractive  when  looking  for  a  job  but  afterward,  when 
some  emergency  loosens  their  restraint,  they  show  their  true 
natures.  For  this  reason  some  firms  prefer  to  have  a  woman 
hire  their  female  office  employees.  There  is  danger  in  this, 
however,  as  women  have  very  little  mercy  for  shortcomings  of 
others  of  their  own  sex,  and  they  are  therefore  apt  to  be  so 
critical  that  they  either  do  not  secure  an  adequate  supply 
or  else  the  force  has  so  many  homely  girls  that  the  men  in 
the  office  find  it  disagreeable.  The  men  are  also  very  apt  to 
feel  that  the  women  workers  are  forcing  them  out  of  their 
jobs  by  being  willing  to  work  for  less  wages,  and  therefore  if 
they  do  not  get  some  recompense  in  the  way  of  a  good-looking 
office  force  their  pessimism  is  likely  to  get  the  upper  hand. 

Then  there  is  the  problem  of  the  "old  women  in  trousers." 
They  are  a  product  of  the  system  which  denies  shop  men  the 
right  to  promotion  into  the  office  and  makes  the  accounting- 
department  something  entirely  separate  and  apart  from  the 
shop.  We  ought  to  find  some  way  in  which  a  young  fel- 
low who  does  well  in  the  shop,  but  who  is  not  of  engineering 
caliber,  can  be  promoted  into  the  office.  The  avenues  of  pro- 
motion through  the  shop  are  daily  becoming  rarer  because 
of  the  number  and  quality  of  engineering  graduates,  and 


—  142  — 

unless  some  opening  is  left  through  the  office  and  sales  depart- 
ments there  is  likely  to  be  little  encouragement  for  men  of 
high  caliber  to  enter  industry  by  that  road. 

There  has  always  been  a  tendency  to  pay  office  people 
in  something  besides  cash.  They  get  shorter  hours,  vacations, 
and  clean,  quiet  and  comfortable  quarters.  They  appear  to 
the  shop  man  to  be  the  favorites  of  the  organization.  A 
shop  man  does  not  at  first  sight  see  the  appeal  of  the  privi- 
leges. He  has  adjusted  his  scale  of  living  to  a  certain  level. 
If  he  enters  the  office  he  sees  a  decrease  of  possibly  five  dollars 
a  week  in  his  income,  and  he  sees  that  he  and  his  whole 
family  will  also  be  compelled  to  spend  much  more  money  on 
clothes  than  they  did  before.  He  sees  no  cash  value  in 
the  short  hours  and  vacation,  only  more  expense.  He  dis- 
covers that  men  who  accept  office  positions  pay  heavily  for 
the  privileges  which  go  with  them  and  that  their  positions 
as  favorites  are  anything  but  profitable  from  a  monetary 
standpoint.  This  condition  is  likely  to  remain  as  it  is  unless 
there  is  a  greater  influx  of  red-blooded  men  into  our  offices. 

With  the  great  increase  in  mechanical  devices  such  as  book- 
keeping machines,  adding  machines,  tabulators,  etc.,  and  the 
systematization  which  leaves  routine  work  in  the  hands  of 
routine  clerks,  there  should  be  a  field  which  will  attract  men 
of  wide  shop  and  general  experience.  It  will,  however,  prob- 
ably increase  the  labor  turnover  rather  than  decrease  it. 
Live  men  will  change  jobs  occasionally  but  it  is  better  that 
they  should  rather  than  get  in  a  rut.  It  is  also  better  for 
the  office  to  have  some  influx  of  new  blood  of  men  who  can 
look  on  the  office  methods  innocent  of  the  fact  that  they 
"have  always  done  it  that  way."  The  employment  depart- 
ment's problem  in  the  office  is  not  so  much  one  of  reducing 
labor  turnover  as  it  is  to  adjust  the  petty  differences  which 
occur,  and  to  secure  employees  who  will  give  adequate  re- 
turns for  larger  salaries  than  they  are  ordinarily  paid. 

Underpayment  in  the  office  is  not  usually  underpayment 
for  services  rendered  but  rather  small  pay  for  services  which 
should  be  rendered,  and  it  is  the  fault  of  the  employees  them- 
selves rather  than  the  management.  When  a  clerk  could  take 
the  time  to  add  a  column  of  figures  the  third  and  fourth  time 


—  143  — 

in  hopes  of  getting  it  twice  alike,  there  was  an  excuse  for 
doing  everything  at  the  same  rate,  and  we  still  retain  this 
leisurely  air  in  all  but  a  few  of  our  more  progressive  offices. 
It  means,  however,  a  constant  fight  if  the  employment  depart- 
ment champions  the  cause  of  the  men  in  the  office  who  are 
trying  to  upset  traditions,  for  tradition  is  very  strong.  If  the 
cashier  got  $200  a  month  ten  years  ago  why  pay  him  more 
now?  He  is  not  even  present  as  many  hours  a  week  as  he 
was  then.  To  be  sure,  he  is  handling  twice  or  three  times 
as  much  money  and  the  company  is  making  three  or  four 
times  the  profit,  but  then  why  pay  him  more?  And  the  only 
reason  that  he  gets  more  salary  is  his  friendship  for  some  one 
high  up  or  fear  on  the  part  of  the  concern  that  he  will  leave, 
and  thus  some  one  else  will  see  all  the  skeletons  in  the  com- 
pany's closet. 

One  of  the  disagreeable  but  necessary  functions  of  an 
employment  department  is  dealing  with  the  people  who  have 
been  retained  on  the  payroll  long  after  they  have  demon- 
strated their  incapacity  for  their  work.  There  are  very  few 
offices  without  some  of  these  people.  They  have  been  on 
the  payroll  so  long  that  no  one  has  the  heart  to  remove  them, 
and  yet,  in  a  way,  they  set  the  pace  for  the  rest  of  the  force. 
A  pension  system  is  the  only  real  cure  for  they  cost  less  if 
merely  on  the  payroll  and  not  taking  up  time  and  space  in 
the  office.  Unfortunately  there  is  not  a  great  deal  of  oppor- 
tunity for  the  establishment  of  piece  rates  in  the  office.  If 
it  could  be  done,  however,  it  would  make  these  misfits  self- 
eliminating,  as  well  as  give  the  rest  of  the  force  a  chance 
to  really  measure  themselves  and  acquire  the  standing,  finan- 
cial and  otherwise,  that  they  desire.  So  much,  outside  of 
purely  routine  work,  depends  on  good  judgment  and  care  that 
the  piece  rate  system  does  not  seem  to  be  feasible  for  office 
work.  Typists  can  be  paid  by  the  line  with  the  aid  of  counters 
on  their  machines.  Stenographers  depend  so  much  on  the 
quality  of  the  dictation  that  it  hardly  seems  fair  to  make  them 
suffer  for  the  faults  of  their  dictators.  Everything  else,  how- 
ever, is  so  difficult  to  measure  that  it  is  cheaper  to  allow 
inefficiency  to  have  full  sway. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  there  seems  to  be  no 


—  144  — 

reason  for  making  the  machinery  of  employment  any  differ- 
ent for  the  office  than  for  the  shop  with  the  possible  excep- 
tions, however,  of  the  use  of  a  written  application  and  a 
separate  place  for  the  interview.  All  applicants  know  whether 
they  are  looking  for  a  shop  job  or  an  office  job,  and  the  entrance 
to  the  employment  department  for  office  jobs  is  better  through 
the  office  itself.  In  fact,  the  less  it  has  the  ear  marks  of  a  reg- 
ular employment  office  the  better.  It  should  simply  be  a  part 
of  the  main  office  where  applicants  are  sent  to  be  interviewed. 

All  that  has  been  said  about  "hiring"  being  a  contract  ap- 
plies even  more  to  office  positions  than  to  shop,  for  the  tenure 
of  office  is  longer  and  the  possibilities  of  responsibility  are 
greater.  The  applicant  is  more  apt  to  approach  change  of  job 
with  caution  but  there  should  certainly  be  no  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  employment  department  to  be  dictatorial.  The 
contract  should  be  the  result  of  a  meeting  of  minds;  of  the 
applicant,  the  employment  manager,  the  man  under  whom  he 
is  to  work  and  that  man's  immediate  superiors.  A  harmonious 
organization  is  improbable  where  any  one  in  it  feels  that  some 
one  has  been  "wished  on"  him.  This  is  more  likely  to  be  a 
vital  point  in  the  office  than  in  the  shop,  for  a  larger  propor- 
tion of  office  jobs  cannot  be  defined.  The  very  routine  jobs 
can  of  course  be  treated  like  those  in  the  shop.  A  girl  whose 
duties  are  well  defined,  who  is  in  contact  only  with  other  girls 
in  that  department  and  responsible  only  to  her  immediate 
superiors  does  not  need  to  be  passed  upon  by  any  one  else, 
but  in  so  many  cases  is  there  contact  with  several  departments, 
while  definite  responsibility  rests  with  only  one  head,  that  it 
seems  very  desirable  that  all  department  heads  should  at  least 
have  a  chance  to  register  their  opinions  before  the  girl  is 
hired.  The  ideal  office  would,  of  course,  be  one  in  which 
every  one  was  hired  in  a  subordinate  position  and  promoted 
as  they  developed.  To  this  should  be  added  training;  not 
merely  the  casual  training  which  comes  as  the  result  of  ex- 
perience, but  definite  intentional  training  with  a  view  always 
of  building  up  character,  ability,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  work 
of  the  office. 

Such  definite  training  may  cover  everything  from  courses 
in  English  and  punctuation  for  copy  girls,  to  courses  in  busi- 


—  145  — 

ness  administration  for  executives;  the  idea  being  to  build 
on  whatever  foundation  the  employee  may  have,  rather  than 
to  insist  on  a  single  course  for  all. 

Above  all,  however,  the  office  force  should  be  taught  co- 
operation. It  often  happens  that  an  organization  is  built 
upon  a  non-cooperative  basis,  the  work  being  done  by  a  few 
men  who  each  do  it  all  themselves,  but  when  the  organiza- 
tion outgrows  the  one-man  stage  it  is  in  serious  danger  of 
going  on  the  rocks  for  lack  of  cooperation  on  the  part  of  those 
who  can  most  profit  by  it.  If  the  instructor  in  charge  of 
the  class  in  business  administration  can  be  persuaded  to  per- 
sistently emphasize  cooperation  and  the  management  itself 
attends  the  class,  as  it  should,  a  great  deal  of  good  may  result, 
for  many  of  these  men  honestly  believe  that  they  are  co- 
operating and  thus  need  to  be  shown  the  error  of  their  ways. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
WOMEN  IN  THE  SHOPS 

IN  the  early  stages  of  the  war  we  heard  much  about  the  em- 
ployment of  women  in  the  shops  of  England  and  France 
and  we  saw  many  pictures  illustrating  their  work,  not  only 
on  light  parts  such  as  rifles  but  also  on  heavy  shells  and 
machines  as  well.  We  looked  at  these  pictures  with  curiosity 
and  then  we  looked  at  our  women  and  said,  "They  can  never 
do  such  work."  Soon,  however,  we  ourselves  were  at  war  and 
then,  just  as  we  were  about  to  find  out  if  our  women  could 
do  such  work,  the  armistice  was  signed  and  now  we  hope  that 
we  shall  never  know.  It  is  true  there  were  factories  where 
a  few  women  from  Poland  or  other  European  countries  did 
laboring  work,  but  they  for  the  most  part  had  but  recently 
arrived  in  this  country  and  thus  had  not  acquired  our  ways 
to  say  nothing  of  our  ideals. 

There  is  something  distasteful  to  us  about  a  woman  getting 
dirty,  no  matter  how  honest  the  labor  may  be,  and  especially 
about  her  doing  heavy  work.  In  the  first  instance,  our  feel- 
ings are  only  sentimental.  We  do  not  want  our  wives  and 
daughters  to  appear  to  work  hard.  We  look  on  them  as 
playmates  and  we  hate  to  have  them  helpmates  any  longer 
than  possible.  Our  second  objection  is  based  on  physiological 
reasons.  We  know  that  a  woman  cannot  lift  as  much  as  a 
man,  but  we  must  admit  that  her  endurance  is  greater.  How- 
ever, for  work  within  the  ordinary  limits  of  man  power,  a 
woman  will  tire  more  easily  than  a  man,  though  after  each  is 
tired,  the  woman,  if  she  thinks  it  necessary,  may  hold  out 
longer  than  the  man. 

We  are,  however,  gradually  discovering  that  it  is  very 
expensive  to  hire  purely  manual  labor  of  any  kind  and  that 

146 


—  147  — 

it  pays  much  better  to  install  machinery  to  do  the  work. 
Such  machinery  naturally  brings  more  and  more  shop  jobs 
within  the  list  of  those  considered  legitimate  for  woman,  and 
in  fact,  excluding  sentiment,  there  is  no  reason  why  a  woman 
should  not  work  at  anything  that  is  fit  for  a  man  to  do;  if 
by  fit  we  literally  mean  so.  Figures  6  and  7  illustrate  two 
types  of  work  to  which  women  are  adapted.  The  first  shows 
a  girl  welding  small  parts  for  aeroplanes,  and  the  second  a  girl 
operating  a  molding  machine.  At  such  work  men  and  women 
can  compete  on  a  basis  of  equality,  since  the  jobs  are  fit  for 
both.  Hand  molding  however  is  not  suited  for  women,  and  in 
most  places  is  even  uneconomical  for  men.  Welding  by  hand 
at  a  blacksmith's  forge  is  equally  unsuited  to  women,  and 
likewise  inefficient  when  large  production  is  considered. 

There  are,  of  course,  jobs  around  furnaces  and  kilns  where 
men  in  order  to  live  must  work  half  or  two-thirds  naked,  but 
they  are  not  fit  jobs  for  men  and  their  number  is  growing 
less  and  less  with  time.  The  number  of  men  who  will  take 
such  jobs  is  also  growing  less  and  the  men  that  we  do  employ 
are  always  demanding  and  getting  higher  rates.  Soon,  how- 
ever, the  point  will  be  reached  where  machinery  that  we 
considered  impossible  a  few  years  ago  will  become  a  neces- 
sity and  some  one  will  then  invent  it.  There  are  other  jobs 
that  require  work  on  high  stagings  where  there  are  ladders  to 
climb,  but  already  our  laws  provide  for  hand  rails  and  toe- 
boards,  and  in  some  places  the  laws  are  enforced.  If,  there- 
fore, the  advent  of  women  into  these  jobs  will  make  them  as 
safe  as  they  ought  to  be,  we  shall  certainly  have  much  for 
which  to  be  thankful. 

Women  in  the  shops  make  it  necessary  to  have  as  good 
toilet  facilities  for  the  men  as  for  the  women,  and  there  is, 
therefore,  always  the  complaint  that  if  women  are  employed 
there  is  great  expense  for  new  plumbing.  However,  if  facili- 
ties were  what  they  should  be,  part  could  be  assigned  to  the 
women  and  part  to  the  men.  Most  places  are  ashamed  to 
let  the  women  see  what  filthy  places  their  husbands  and  sons 
have  had  to  use,  and  so  they  do  go  to  the  extra  expense  of 
installing  new  toilets  which  ought  to  be  charged  up  as  con- 
science money  and  never  as  the  cost  of  employing  women. 


—  148  — 

Another  result  of  employing  women  in  the  shops  is  the 
better  guarding  of  machinery.  A  man  with  a  missing  finger, 
if  he  does  not  tell  how  it  happened,  may  get  credit  for  being 
a  war  hero,  but  a  girl  with  a  finger  gone  or  a  scar  across  her 
face  is  handicapped  infinitely  more  than  a  man  with  the  same 
disability.  Of  course  this  is  sentimental  and  all  wrong  for 
we  ought  to  have  the  same  feeling  toward  the  man  with  the 
disability  that  we  do  toward  the  woman.  At  all  events,  it  is 
the  same  conscience  that  makes  us  put  in  reasonably  good 
plumbing  which  also  makes  us  see  the  danger  of  machinery 
to  women,  and  so  to  put  up  guards  where  we  would  not  do  so 
for  men  even  though  the  law  demands  it.  Therefore  the  cost 
of  extra  guards  should  also  be  charged  to  the  conscience  fund. 

A  similar  condition  of  affairs  usually  also  exists  in  the  eat- 
ing places.  Men  through  sheer  force  of  habit  take  their  din- 
ner pails  and  during  the  noon  hour  lie  around  in  dirty  cor- 
ners and  under  cars,  dropping  their  food  on  unfinished  work 
and  leaving  the  crumbs  and  crusts  and  cores,  all  without  com- 
ment, because  it  is  the  custom.  When  women  are  employed, 
however,  they  must  have  a  clean,  bright,  airy  place  to  eat 
and  it  is  expensive  to  install  such  places.  To  be  sure  it  pays, 
and  so  do  similar  eating  places  for  men,  but  only  occasionally 
do  we  find  a  shop  that  has  imagination  and  faith  enough  to 
build  such  places  for  its  men. 

Similar  changes  occur  in  other  habits  which  men  have  ac- 
quired in  the  shops.  Swearing  is  eliminated  or  modified,  and 
chewing  tobacco  decreases.  Overalls  are  washed  from  time  to 
time.  In  fact  the  woman-shop  is  at  least  more  civilized.  But 
what  is  the  effect  on  the  women?  As  it  brings  men  up,  does 
it  also  bring  women  down?  Happily  there  is  nothing  in  the 
records  to  justify  such  an  opinion.  It  is  true  that  in  Europe 
the  number  of  illegitimate  children  increased  in  all  countries 
during  the  war,  but  that  was  very  likely  due  to  the  customs 
and  to  the  fact  that  with  them  marriage  is  an  afterthought 
rather  than  a  forethought.  There  is  always  a  class  of  women 
who  are  man-crazy  and  who  will  go  into  shops  or  any  other 
places  where  the  chances  of  picking  up  an  acquaintance  seem 
good,  but  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  this  number  is  in- 
creased by  the  fact  that  they  can  get  into  shops.  In  fact  they 


—  149  — 

cannot  get  in  a  well-organized  shop  in  any  great  numbers 
for  they  are  easily  "spotted."    On  the  other  hand,  there  is 


FIGURE  6.    GIRL  WELDING  SMALL  PARTS  FOR  AEROPLANES. 


FIGURE  7.    GIRL  OPERATING  MOLDING  MACHINE. 

greater  danger  that  good  girls  will  be  unjustly  given  a  bad 

name  than  that  bad  girls  will  get  into  a  shop  and  stay  there. 

One  of  the  great  problems  which  arises  in  connection  with 


—  150  — 

the  employment  of  women  is  the  selection  of  a  suitable  garb 
and  it  seems  to  be  usually  one  of  skirts  vs.  trousers.  This 
question  is  one  that  the  male  sex  is  going  to  have  very  little  to 
say  about  for  women  will  always  wear  what  they  choose,  little 
or  much,  and  ours  is  only  to  look  and  gasp  from  time  to  time. 
Judging  by  the  past,  however,  women  are  not  content  to  look 
homely  for  any  great  length  of  time.  To  be  sure  many  of 
their  fashions  have  seemed  unbecoming  in  the  past  but  they 
have  not  lasted  long.  Women  must  attract  the  male  sex  or 
else  be  entirely  false  to  their  traditions,  and  we  are  not  likely  to 
see  the  traditions  of  centuries  shattered  in  a  few  years.  They 
may  work  in  the  shops,  and  undoubtedly  they  will  for  a  long 
time,  for  they  have  found  an  independence  they  had  not  even 
dared  to  hope  for,  and  for  a  time  they  will  undoubtedly 
affect  the  overalls,  otherwise  the  "womanall,"  but  nature  will 
most  surely  assert  itself  with  something  more  becoming. 
By  becoming,  we  ought  to  mean  something  that  enhances  their 
beauty  either  by  adding  to  it  or  by  setting  it  off  and  in  some 
cases  women  may  possibly  wear  mean,  ugly  clothes  in  the 
hopes  that  men  will  then  look  on  their  faces  and  admire  them. 

As  a  working  costume  for  many  jobs,  the  womanall 
shown  in  Figure  8  seems  very  suitable,  but  we  can  hardly 
expect  any  great  number  of  young  ladies  to  aspire  to  such  a 
costume.  For  the  greater  number  of  jobs,  90  per  cent  surely,  a 
skirt  for  a  woman  and  an  apron  for  a  man  seems  the  most  ap- 
propriate, for  machinery  is  now  so  universally  well  guarded 
that  there  is  little  or  no  danger  of  the  apron  getting  caught 
and  less  of  the  skirt  which  women  wear,  because  that  does  not 
have  the  loose  corners  of  the  apron.  In  addition  to  the  ele- 
ment of  safety  the  women  want  a  garb  that  can  be  worn  over 
the  street  costume  in  winter  and  used  as  a  substitute  in  sum- 
mer. This  is  easily  accomplished  by  means  of  a  dress  of  some 
khaki-like  goods  made  along  the  lines  of  the  conservation 
dress  designed  by  the  food  administration  and  worn  by  so 
many  women  during  harvest  time  and  while  they  were  can- 
ning vegetables,  and  for  almost  every  job  that  women  are 
likely  to  pursue  in  any  numbers  this  costume  has  all  the  ad- 
vantages and  none  of  the  disadvantages  of  the  womanalls. 

Another  topic  which  always  comes  up  is  that  of  the  sex 


—  151  — 

of  the  foreman.    It  seems  natural  to  the  masculine  mind  that 
a  room  filled  with  women  workers  should  have  a  woman  as  a 


FIGURE  8.    THE  "WOMANALL,"  A  WORKING  COSTUME  FOR  WOMEN. 

foreman.  This  is  the  custom  in  some  industries  but  not  in 
many,  for  it  seems  to  be  a  fairly  well-established  fact  that  wo- 
men prefer  to  work  under  a  man  rather  than  one  of  their  own 
sex.  Whether  this  is  because  they  expect  to  be  able  to  fool  him 


—  152  — 

more  effectively  in  case  of  necessity  or  whether  it  is  aversion  to 
see  another  woman  outrank  them  is  a  question.  The  fact  re- 
mains, however,  that  there  are  many  barriers  between  men 
foremen  and  women  workers. 

The  next  step  is  the  appointment  of  a  shop  matron. 
Whether  she  shall  be  a  policewoman  or  whether  she  shall  be 
a  social  worker  is  not  yet  apparently  settled.  There  are  more 
social  workers  to-day  than  policewoman  and  yet  the  extreme 
social  type,  the  woman  who  wants  to  be  a  mother  to  the  work- 
ers, but  who  was  never  actually  one  to  her  own  children,  does 
not  usually  last.  Young  women  especially  look  at  shop  work 
much  the  same  as  they  look  on  school,  as  a  sort  of  game  where 
the  object  is  to  beat  the  rules.  Not  that  the  rules  are  wrong 
and  oppressive,  but  the  fact  that  they  are  rules  constitutes 
them  a  challenge.  The  extreme  motherly  type  never  gets  her 
eyes  open.  She  always  thinks  of  her  "chicks"  as  "innocent 
little  things"  who  never  could  break  a  rule.  And  there  is  no 
harm  intended  for  once  they  demonstrate  that  a  rule  can  be 
broken,  they  let  it  alone  and  try  to  break  another,  but  it  up- 
sets all  the  calculation  of  a  masculine  foreman.  He  has  lived 
all  his  life  in  the  constant  need  of  a  job,  and  he  cannot  un- 
derstand the  philosophy  of  a  girl  whose  idea  of  being  dis- 
charged is  that  she  will  have  an  extra  week's  pay  in  her  pocket 
with  which  she  will  buy  candy  and  a  book  and  curl  up  in  a 
corner  and  be  really  happy  for  a  day  or  two.  Making  rules 
for  girls  is  something  of  a  joke  in  itself.  Of  course  there  are 
some  girls  who  not  only  support  themselves  but  mothers  and 
younger  brothers  and  sisters  as  well,  but  a  man  can  hardly 
inquire  closely  enough  into  their  home  affairs  to  find  it  out, 
and  the  girls  are  not  apt  to  volunteer  the  information. 

A  matron  should  be  a  woman  in  whom  the  other  women  in 
the  shop  have  confidence.  She  must  not  be  of  the  "doll"  type 
and  yet  she  should  not  be  so  homely  that  the  other  girls 
will  say,  "If  working  in  this  shop  makes  women  look  like 
that  I'll  work  somewhere  else."  She  should  have  worked  in 
a  shop  long  enough  to  know  how  the  women  feel  who  work 
there.  It  will  also  be  much  better  if  she  is  a  mother  and 
preferably  the  mother  of  girls  of  an  age  such  that  they  could 
work  in  the  shop. 


—  153  — 

The  matron  should  not  be  responsible  to  the  foreman, 
though  she  should  cooperate  with  him  so  far  as  he  will  al- 
low her  to  do  so.  She  should  not  cooperate  to  the  extent  of 
trying  to  transmit  his  orders  and  directions  to  the  girls.  If 
he  appears  to  be  having  trouble  making  them  understand, 
she  might  "listen  in"  and  find  out  why  they  do  not  understand 
or  if  they  are  bluffing  him.  All  cases  of  illness  should  come 
through  her  hands,  though  accident  cases  should  not  wait  for 
her.  Many  of  these  cases  are  mental  disturbances  only  and 
can  be  cured  by  a  few  minutes'  rest  and  being  let  alone.  A 
Christian  Scientist  would  make  an  excellent  matron  if  she 
could  only  realize  that  the  laws  of  chemistry  are  just  as  much 
laws  of  nature  as  the  laws  of  the  mind.  Whether  there  are 
such  Christian  Scientists  or  not  the  author  does  not  know. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
EMPLOYMENT  OF  MINORS 

WHAT  constitutes  child  labor  is  a  variable  rather  than  a 
fixed  quantity.  Some  states,  like  Massachusetts,  pre- 
scribe tasks  which  boys  up  to  the  age  of  twenty-one  shall  not  be 
allowed  to  do.  In  a  strictly  legal  sense  child  labor  stops  only 
at  that  age.  Most  of  us,  however,  think  of  it  in  terms  of  four- 
teen or  sixteen  years  of  age.  Men  now  fifty  years  old  do  not 
look  on  child  labor  with  the  abhorrence  that  seems  to  possess 
the  younger  generation.  Most  of  them  worked  as  children 
and  worked  hard,  and  yet  they  survived.  They  also  survived 
much  fried  food,  bad  teeth,  poor  ventilation,  and  poor  sanita- 
tion. They  are  the  toughest  of  the  boys  and  girls  of  their 
generation.  The  rest  are  dead.  The  present  generation  looks 
back  on  the  child  mortality  of  those  days  and  thinks  that 
the  price  paid  for  child  labor  was  indeed  high  and  as  a  con- 
sequence we  are  now  going  through  a  period  of  coddling  which 
may  possibly  not  produce  the  virile  manhood  which  we  need. 
Work  in  reasonable  quantity  is  good  for  all,  young  and  old, 
but  what  constitutes  a  reasonable  quantity  is  no  more  easy 
to  determine  than  to  fix  the  amount  of  alcohol  or  tobacco 
that  a  person  should  have  at  different  ages.  What  is  good 
for  one  may  be  very  harmful  to  another  and  some  boys  would 
be  very  much  better  off  for  some  really  hard  labor  as  young 
as  fourteen  years.  Others,  of  course,  would  not. 

It  seems  to  be  the  fashion  to  give  these  growing  boys  the 
choice  of  what  seems  to  them  to  be  two  evils,  go  to  school  or 
work,  thus  making  a  punishment  out  of  the  two  most  valuable 
experiences  a  child  can  have.  It  would  seem  as  if  the 
transition  from  one  to  the  other,  to  produce  the  best  results, 
should  be  an  easy  one  of  increasing  working  hours  and  de- 

154 


—  155  — 

creasing  school,  but  neither  shops  nor  schools  are  organized 
to  do  this,  the  exceptions  being  so  few  as  only  to  prove  the 
rule.  Theoretically,  education  should  be  a  process  of  learn- 
ing to  live  without  the  aid  of  instruction.  When  a  child  leaves 
school  he  should  be  able  to  go  on  and  learn  anything  he  may 
wish  without  the  aid  of  a  school,  but  practically  the  schools 
drop  him,  or  he  drops  the  schools,  half  fledged  and  with  but 
little  knowledge  of  how  to  succeed  with  the  world.  He  throws 
himself  into  a  store,  a  shop,  or  an  office  and  is  "kicked"  about 
until  he  has  a  little  sense,  which  means  that  he  learns  that  the 
school  way  and  the  business  way  do  not  mix  any  more  than 
oil  and  water.  He  is  perfectly  willing  to  be  "kicked"  around 
for  a  while  as  otherwise  the  transition  from  short  hours,  many 
holidays,  and  vacations  to  long  hours  and  no  vacations  is 
too  sudden.  He  gets  the  equivalent  vacation  while  waiting 
for  a  new  job  to  turn  up,  somewhere,  on  the  average,  between 
five  and  seven  times  per  year. 

At  present  there  is  a  struggle  going  on  between  the  pub- 
lic schools  and  the  employers  for  the  control  of  these  chil- 
dren. The  public  school  authorities  resent  the  criticism,  the 
truth  of  which  they  cannot  deny  however  that  not  quite 
two  per  cent  of  all  their  pupils  complete  their  educational 
program.  They  want  to  keep  the  children's  names  on  their 
books  by  any  means  that  is  possible.  Employers,  on  the 
other  hand,  no  matter  how  much  they  may  say  in  condemna- 
tion of  boys  in  particular,  are  constantly  trying  by  hook  or 
crook  to  get  them  into  their  shops,  for  boys  form  a  valuable 
addition  to  any  working  force.  They  command  low  wages 
and  enough  of  them  grow  up  into  useful  positions  so  that  on 
the  whole  they  are  a  very  profitable  part  of  the  organization. 
Also  the  fact  that  so  large  a  proportion  of  what  is  taught  in 
our  schools  is  either  useless  in  itself,  or  else  is  taught  in  such 
a  way  that  it  seems  useless,  makes  many  men  honestly  believe 
that  it  would  be  better  if  the  coming  generation  went  with- 
out the  only  kind  of  education  the  public  schools  seem  willing 
to  offer,  and  grew  up  in  the  atmosphere  in  which  they  are  to 
work  and  live. 

Aside  from  this  question,  however,  we  have  the  problem 
of  what  to  do  with  the  boys  when  they  are  in  our  shops.  As 


—  156  — 

a  rule,  they  are  left  to  themselves  and  to  illustrate  what  may 
be  the  result  of  such  a  practice  the  following  may  be  of  in- 
terest. The  American  Boy,  a  prominent  boys'  paper,  has  pub- 
lished a  list  of  fifty  reasons,  as  given  by  employers,  to  the 
discharge  of  their  boys.  These  reasons  might  be  classified 
under  the  following  heads: 

Dishonesty   13 

Overzealousness 9 

Lack  of  interest   7 

Dissipation     3 

Discourtesy    2 

Inaccuracy    2 

Disloyalty 2 

Hasty  decision    2 

Drew  loafers   1 

Bull  in  a  china  shop  1 

Jealousy    1 

Cruelty    1 

Lack  of  adaptability 1 

Too  much  mother 1 

Lack  of  detail  1 

Lazy    1 

Late     1 

Wanderlust     1 

In  the  minds  of  these  employers,  dishonesty  consisted  in 
being  so  to  them  and  to  their  customers  or  clients.  It  was 
all  petty,  it  was  the  kind  of  dishonesty  that  is  practiced  in  our 
schools  and  which  is  winked  at,  and  in  a  way  it  may  therefore 
be  said  to  be  the  product  of  schools.  In  our  schools  rules  are 
made  not  in  the  interest  of  justice,  but  rather  to  make  the  work 
of  the  teacher  easier  and  the  boys  have  prided  themselves  on 
their  ability  to  break  these  rules  and  not  get  caught.  When 
they  leave  school  they  mistake  the  dictates  of  their  consciences 
for  the  petticoat  rules  with  which  they  formerly  contended. 
Just  so  long  as  we  tolerate  the  convenient  tyranny  that  is 
practiced  on  our  children  in  public  schools  we  have  no  right 
to  criticize  too  harshly  their  product.  What  we  are  doing  in 
a  rather  inefficient  way  is  to  break  these  boys  of  their  small 
dishonesties,  but  what  we  should  do  is  to  remove  the  cause. 

Overzealousness  was  the  next  largest  cause  of  trouble. 


—  157  — 

These  were  the  boys  who  had  been  told  by  their  fathers, 
mothers  and  teachers,  in  fact  by  everybody,  that  there  is  plenty 
of  room  at  the  top,  and  that  it  is  the  faithful  boy  who  discovers 
some  way  to  increase  his  employer's  profits  by  several  hun- 
dred per  cent  that  wins  out.  Naturally  having  heard  it  from 
all  sides  he  goes  to  work  with  this  high  resolve  and  soon  he 
sees  a  chance  to  make  improvements,  and  mindful  of  the 
stories  he  has  read  proceeds  to  do  so.  He  gets  caught  in  the 
act,  and  is  summarily  fired,  and  after  this  has  happened  a 
dozen  times  or  more  he  begins  to  get  an  idea  that  the  world 
does  not  want  to  be  improved,  so  naturally  he  begins  to  settle 
down  into  the  uninterested  stage  which  takes  in  the  next  larg- 
est number  of  boys  discharged,  and  which  lasts  many  of  them 
for  life.  Just  how  much  initiative  is  lost  by  this  repression 
no  one  knows.  It  is  not  as  bad  as  it  was  a  few  generations 
ago,  and  a  few  more  generations  may  find  that  the  dreams  of 
youth  are  not  all  to  be  sneered  at  and  discarded  untried.  Boys 
do  bring  up  the  most  foolish  ideas,  in  the  light  of  our  vastly 
superior  knowledge,  but  when  we  consider  that  what  we  have 
to-day  our  own  fathers  laughed  at  we  ought  to  carefully 
consider  even  the  wildest  schemes  of  our  sons.  It  does  not 
take  a  man  of  even  middle  age  to  remember  when  men  who 
played  with  kites  and  dreamed  of  flying  were  thought  mildly 
insane,  and  Jules  Vernes'  fantastic  stories  of  submarines  were 
considered  good  fiction  but  not  connected  with  fact. 

Then  there  is  the  opposite  extreme,  the  boys  that  have  had 
the  initiative  kicked  out  of  them,  whose  dreams  have  been 
ridiculed  until  they  are  afraid  to  say  that  they  have  any.  They 
form  14  per  cent  of  these  cases.  Some  of  them  will  swing 
back  but  more  will  not.  The  brightest  boys  in  school  seldom 
amount  to  much  afterwards.  They  seem  to  blossom  and  die 
out  of  the  race.  They  are  usually  high  strung,  sensitive,  and 
not  fitted  by  nature  to  buck  against  the  world  the  way  it  is 
organized.  It  is  just  as  foolish  to  throw  this  part  of  our  work- 
ing force  away  as  it  would  be  to  decline  to  raise  grape  fruit 
because  it  is  not  all  wanted  by  people  who  will  come  and  get 
it.  Great  genius  can  command  respect  even  if  it  is  sensitive. 
People  will  pay  large  prices  and  come  by  thousands  to  hear  a 
man  play  a  violin.  The  violinist  may  be  and  usually  is  tern- 


—  158  — 

peramental,  which  means  that  he  lives  his  own  life  and  lets 
the  world  go  its  own  way.  But  let  the  boy  who  is  sensitive  to 
criticism  come  along  and  he  is  squelched  before  he  gets  started. 
He  might  make  a  better  accountant,  or  a  better  mechanic, 
than  the  thick-skinned  chap  that  works  next  to  him,  but  we 
discourage  him  as  soon  as  possible  and  thereby  throw  away 
a  force  that  we  can  ill  afford  to  lose.  Very  seldom  is  there 
any  sustained  effort  to  show  boys  the  points  of  interest  in  the 
work  he  is  hired  to  do.  Very  many  times  there  are  none.  He 
is  hired  to  be  present  and  to  do  as  he  is  told.  He  does  not 
know  the  meaning  of  the  messages  he  carries.  He  is  not  in  any 
sense  a  part  of  the  organization.  He  is  simply  a  necessary 
evil  and  is  frequently  reminded  of  the  fact. 

Dissipation  was  the  cause  of  discharging  three  of  these 
boys.  Not  real  dissipation  but  such  things  as  staying  out  late 
at  night  and  smoking  cigarettes;  in  fact  all  such  things  that 
a  few  people  call  dissipation  and  the  rest  term  kid  foolishness. 
They  were  not  argued  with,  in  fact  most  of  the  employers  did 
not  even  wait  to  see  if  the  boy  would  deny  it. 

Discourtesy,  inaccuracy,  and  disloyalty  each  claimed  two. 
Discourtesy  in  a  boy  of  adolescent  age  is  only  a  natural  state. 
The  fair-haired  darlings  that  are  courteous  between  the  ages  of 
fourteen  and  sixteen  will  probably  die  young.  They  ought  not 
to  be  placed  where  courtesy  is  needed,  but  despite  this  we  give 
them  jobs  as  office  boys,  and  have  them  show  visitors  to  the 
offices  of  the  manager  and  president.  They  cannot  help  being 
irreverent  and  burlesquing  the  waddle  of  the  fat  "party"  as 
soon  as  he  turns  his  back.  They  are  simply  on  the  wrong 
jobs.  Girls  do  the  job  much  better  and  at  that  age  have  a 
great  deal  more  sense.  That  is,  they  think  more  in  conform- 
ity to  the  ways  of  society. 

Disloyalty  ranks  with  dishonesty  in  its  source,  if  not  in 
fact.  It  is  dishonest  to  accept  pay  from  a  company  to  which 
one  cannot  be  loyal.  Boys,  however,  are  quite  inclined  to 
think  that  honesty  to  the  concern  means  that  they  cannot 
be  loyal  to  a  superior  who  is  trying  to  put  something  over  on 
the  management.  After  they  get  a  little  older  they  wink  at 
such  practices  and  get  along  better  with  their  superiors  and 
with  their  own  consciences  but  only  by  lulling  the  latter  to 


—  159  — 

sleep.  Real  disloyalty  is  very  rare.  What  passes  for  it  is 
usually  lack  of  interest.  Inaccuracy  is  the  crying  sin  of  all 
youth.  It  is  not  often  a  cause  of  dismissal  because  employ- 
ers do  not  dare  to  put  boys  where  inaccuracy  counts  for  much. 
It  is  a  fault  of  the  public  school  system  where  a  50  or  at  most 
a  60  per  cent  mark  passes.  Think  of  an  office  where  a 
clerk  was  allowed  to  stay  if  he  got  a  half  of  his  additions 
right ! 

The  rest  of  the  causes  affected  only  one  boy  each.  Of 
these  one  is  "too  much  mother,"  or  a  tendency  of  the  mother  to 
ask  for  special  privileges  for  her  son.  Her  boy  is  too  good  for 
the  work  he  is  given  to  do ;  or  he  has  to  come  home  at  three 
o'clock  on  Wednesday  to  have  a  music  lesson.  The  boy  who 
suffers  from  "too  much  mother"  is  to  be  pitied  rather  than 
blamed,  and  he  cannot  be  told  to  resent  it.  There  is  no  cure 
unless  through  the  father  and  he  probably  has  trouble  enough 
of  his  own  with  a  wife  of  that  type.  One  boy  proved  to  be 
of  the  type  that  is  always  breaking  things;  he  grew  so  fast 
that  his  muscular  control  did  not  keep  up.  Another  seemed 
to  have  a  following  of  other  boys  who  were  merely  loafers. 
They  hung  around  the  store  and  drove  trade  away.  He  had 
the  faculty  of  making  friends  without  the  discrimination  to 
make  the  right  kind,  and  to  all  appearances  no  one  took  the 
bother  to  tell  him  differently.  Another  could  not  remember 
detail.  One  more  could  not  keep  still.  He  just  had  to  move 
on  and  on.  One  each  was  lazy  and  tardy,  a  very  small  number 
considering  that  these  two  attributes  are  usually  considered 
as  belonging  to  boys. 

WThat  does  all  this  mean  to  employers?  It  means  that 
men  have  to  go  through  the  boy  stage.  Nature  demands  time 
in  which  to  develop  not  only  the  body  but  the  mind,  that  this 
development  must  go  through  certain  stages  or  result  in 
abnormal  and  one-sided  development.  If  we  want  to  make 
the  best  men  out  of  our  boys,  and  want  to  make  the  most  profit 
out  of  them  at  the  same  time,  we  must  study  boy-nature. 
The  school  of  hard  knocks  may  be  a  good  school.  It  is  ef- 
fective, to  be  sure,  but  no  one  would  think  of  running  a  stock 
farm  on  the  plan  that  we  use  to  train  (?)  our  boys  in  the  stores 
and  shops.  We  simply  cannot  afford  to  discharge  a  boy  for 


—  160  — 

any  of  the  reasons  given  above.  These  are  symptoms  that  the 
boy  is  being  natural  or  developing  as  is  to  be  expected  from 
the  surroundings  in  which  we  have  thrown  him.  The  school, 
with  its  distinctly  feminine  environment,  is  the  first  thing  in 
his  life  that  needs  reforming.  Then  we  need  to  learn  to  rea- 
son with  him  in  terms  that  he  can  understand.  There  are 
very  few  boys  who  do  not  want  to  do  right.  They  do  not 
understand  why  we  do  some  things  the  way  we  do,  and  if  we 
stop  and  think  a  moment  we  find  it  pretty  hard  to  give  any 
other  reason  than  that  we  have  always  done  it  that  way.  It 
often  seems  hard  to  bring  ourselves  to  treat  with  a  boy  as  we 
would  with  a  man  of  our  own  age,  but  the  cases  where  it  has 
been  done  seem  to  have  been  profitable.  Just  so  long  as  a 
boy  is  treated  as  a  boy,  in  the  usual  sense,  he  remains  a  boy. 
It  is  only  when  he  begins  to  look  like  a  man  that  he  is  treated 
in  such  a  way  that  his  self-respect  is  given  a  chance  to  as- 
sert itself. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


THE  results  of  the  physical  examinations  made  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  showed  a  very  small  percentage  of 
perfect  men,  even  so  far  as  freedom  from  disease  and  deforma- 
tion are  concerned.  In  a  sense  every  man  unable  to  pass  these 
severe  tests  is  a  cripple,  but  technically  speaking,  a  war 
cripple,  as  defined  by  law,  is  a  man  whom  the  War  Risk  In- 
surance Bureau  rates  as  being  over  ten  per  cent  disabled  for 
his  former  vocation.  Even  this,  however,  is  quite  contrary  to 
the  view  so  often  held  by  the  general  public  that  a  cripple  is  a 
man  who  has  lost  one  or  both  legs  and  must  beg  on  the  street 
corner  to  secure  a  living.  Thanks  to  the  foresight  of  Congress, 
there  will  be  few  if  any  poverty  stricken  cripples  as  a  result 
of  the  war,  but  we  will  still  have  industrial  cripples  to  be  em-- 
ployed and  they  must  be  profitably  employed. 

In  the  past  it  has  too  often  been  the  habit  of  superintend- 
ents to  offer  any  man  who  was  hurt  in  the  shop  a  job  run- 
ning an  elevator,  or  as  a  watchman,  or  some  other  "dead  end" 
job,  and  this  arrangement  would  continue  until  there  was  a 
change  in  superintendents,  or  a  spasm  of  economy  struck  the 
firm,  by  which  time  the  man  had  usually  become  a  chronic 
"dead-ender"  and  was  unable  to  arouse  himself  to  even  ask 
for  a  man-size  job.  As  a  result  of  the  work  done  in  the  re- 
habilitation of  war  cripples,  there  will  however  undoubtedly 
be  a  great  change  in  the  reclamation  of  shop  cripples. 

There  are  two  fundamental  ways  of  handling  the  prob- 
lem of  disability.  ,  The  first  is  the  European  method  which  is 
based  on  the  immutability  of  the  trade,  by  which  a  man  who 
was  injured  in  such  a  way  as  to  decrease  his  ability  to  earn 
money  is  supplied  with  artificial  means;  the  second  is  the 

161 


—  162  — 

American  plan  which  seeks  to  develop  the  man's  mental  powers 
rather  than  his  physical  ones.  Under  the  European  method 
a  man  who  had  been  a  pattern  maker  and  who  had  lost  an 
arm  would  be  supplied  with  an  artificial  arm  for  Sunday 
wear,  and  also  a  kind  of  holder  into  which  the  various  tools 
of  his  trade  could  be  inserted.  He  would  be  trained  to  use  this 
artificial  arm  and  sent  back  to  his  old  work.  This  is  prob- 
ably the  best  possible  way  in  Europe  where  families  follow 
one  trade  for  generations,  but  in  this  country  where  it  is  the 
exceptional  boy  who  even  tries  his  father's  trade,  and  most 
men  can  show  record  of  having  tried  several  different  callings, 
this  plan  is  not  the  best.  It  is  rather  more  in  keeping  with 
the  customs  of  this  country  to  train  the  injured  man  for  some 
other  trade,  preferably  one  for  which  some  one  of  his  previ- 
ous occupations  form  a  basis,  and  in  which  that  particular  in- 
jury will  not  be  a  great  handicap.  For  example,  a  man  with 
one  leg  may  have  been  a  most  excellent  house  carpenter,  but 
he  can  no  longer  safely  climb  ladders.  He  can,  however,  be 
trained  to  become  a  pattern  maker  and  given  a  job  which  will 
not  require  him  to  be  on  foot  all  day,  or  he  may  be  taught  to 
read  architectural  blue  prints  and  thus  become  a  draftsman  or 
an  estimator. 

One  of  the  most  difficult  cases  to  handle  is  that  of  the  day 
laborer,  who  has  had  nothing  to  offer  but  his  manual  labor, 
the  strength  of  his  body.  Very  few  accidents  can  happen  to 
such  a  man  without  taking  away  all  his  visible  assets.  He 
has  nothing  to  build  on,  not  even  in  many  cases,  a  knowledge 
of  English  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  intelligently  discuss  his 
case.  These  men  may  be  divided  into  two  classes,  one  the 
merely  ignorant,  and  the  other  those  mentally  lacking,  clas- 
sified in  the  army  and  navy  into  cases  of  dementia  prsecox, 
or  constitutional  inferiority.  Many  such  men  are  really  capa- 
ble of  earning  a  fair  living,  if  under  suitable  conditions,  and 
many  of  them  did  and  were  only  made  to  suffer  when  in  the 
course  of  army  discipline  they  were  obliged  to  obey  orders 
without  having  time  to  think  the  matter  over.  With  a  drill 
sergeant  barking  at  them  they  naturally  went  to  pieces  very 
soon,  and  of  course  suffered  a  nervous  collapse  and  had  to  be 
surveved  out. 


—  163  — 

These  men,  whether  their  disability  occurs  in  the  service 
or  in  private  life,  are  really  suitable  subjects  for  treatment  in 
an  institution.  However,  they  are  often  able  to  earn  a  com- 
fortable living  for  themselves  in  some  of  the  many  positions 
in  industry  where  the  duties  to  be  performed  are  more  or  less 
of  the  alarm  clock  variety,  that  is  they  must  be  present  and 
ring  in  an  alarm  if  things  are  not  going  right.  Industry  is 
still  so  organized  that  there  is  yet  need  of  such  men,  and  it 
probably  will  not  change  materially  for  some  time  to  come. 
There  should,  however,  be  saved  for  men  of  this  type  jobs  that 
have  the  semblance  of  importance,  as  typified  by  a  uniform 
and  brass  buttons,  for  although  they  cannot  accept  any  real 
responsibility  they  are  happy  in  the  belief  that  their  jobs 
are  important. 

Another  difficult  case  to  deal  with  is  that  of  the  man  who 
has  a  strong  mentality,  but  who  quarreled  with  the  system 
of  formal  education  which  prevails  and  leaving  school  went 
to  work  long  before  he  ought  for  his  own  good.  We  cannot 
but  feel  a  strong  sympathy  for  him,  and  perhaps  we  are  in- 
clined to  bewail  the  ineptitude  of  our  public  school  system 
and  let  it  go  at  that,  but  this  does  not  in  the  least  help  him. 
It  would  seem  as  though  a  country  which  has  for  so  many 
decades  allowed  its  schools  to  be  predicated  on  the  needs  of 
the  two  per  cent  of  the  population  who  desired  to  go  to  col- 
lege, should  at  least  provide  the  means  for  helping  these  un- 
fortunates ;  but  we  do  not  do  it  that  way.  However,  it  is  pos- 
sible under  the  Rehabilitation  Act  to  place  these  men  back  in 
the  schools  which  they  left,  tell  them  that  this  is  the  system 
and  that  if  they  can  stand  it  it  will  do  them  good,  and  see  if 
they  will  not  stick  to  their  job  better  than  they  did  before. 

While  this  may  seem  much  like  thrusting  medicine  down 
a  man's  throat  while  he  is  powerless  to  resist,  or  in  milder 
form,  taking  advantage  of  his  inability  to  see  any  better  way 
out  of  his  difficulty  than  the  one  we  offer,  it  is  effective.  These 
war  veterans  have  matured  a  great  deal  because  of  their  ex- 
periences, and  their  attitude  toward  education  is  vastly  dif- 
ferent from  that  which  they  previously  showed  when  partak- 
ing of  formal  instruction.  They  have  learned  to  accept  what 
comes  to  them,  and  to  try  to  find  some  good  in  it  and  they 


—  164  — 

consequently  find  much  in  our  educational  system  which  they 
can  appreciate.  In  addition  they  are,  for  the  most  part,  defi- 
nitely headed  toward  some  vocational  goal  and  vocational  ed- 
ucation is  just  creeping  out  from  under  the  wing  of  the  gen- 
eral school  system,  and  getting  ready  to  hold  up  its  own  head. 
These  soldiers  are  just  in  time  to  both  profit  by  the  industrial 
education  movement  and  to  help  it  along  by  demonstrating 
its  practical  value. 

The  same  sort  of  training  should  be  given  to  the  industrial 
cripple.  If  he  is  well  educated  or  well  started  on  an  educa- 
tion he  should  be  given  all  the  practical,  useful  education  he 
can  profitably  use.  It  may  seem  as  though  he  did  not  need 
such  training,  but  the  public  interests  demand  that  he  have 
it.  There  are  too  few  boys  and  young  men  who  are  mature 
enough  to  really  get  full  value  from  technical  training  of  any 
kind,  but  here  among  our  cripples  are  men  capable  of  devel- 
oping brain  power  beyond  that  possessed  by  the  younger  fel- 
lows who  have  taken  their  school  work  as  a  necessary  evil 
connected  with  playing  on  the  baseball  team  of  some  well- 
known  college. 

From  the  American  point  of  view  this  is  the  keynote  of  the 
whole  situation:  to  develop  brain  power  rather  than  to  offer 
the  mechanical  aids  which  seems  to  be  the  European  way. 
This  applies  not  only  to  men  capable  of  acquiring  a  college 
education,  but  also  to  the  men  in  all  ranks  of  industry,  com- 
merce, and  profession.  If  a  man  has  been  working  as  a  ship- 
ping clerk  in  a  hardware  store,  and  can  no  longer  do  so  be- 
cause he  is  lame  he  should  be  given  training  in  bookkeeping  or 
cost  accounting  and  put  in  the  main  office,  where  in  spite  of 
his  handicap  his  acquired  knowledge  of  hardware  will  make 
him  worth  more  than  the  office-reared  clerk.  If  it  is  a  case  of  a 
man  who  has  been  working  in  a  railroad  shop  as  a  machinist, 
and  he  can  "carry  on"  no  longer  because  of  the  loss  of  a  leg, 
or  a  wound  across  the  back  which  prevents  his  lifting,  he  can 
be  sent  to  a  trade  school,  and  in  a  comparatively  short  time 
trained  to  do  light  fine  work,  such  as  running  a  bench  lathe 
or  small  hand  fitting  or  assembling,  for  the  principles  of  ma- 
chine work  are  the  same  regardless  of  the  size  or  weight  of 
the  work. 


—  165  — 

These  ways  of  assisting  disabled  men  seem  comparatively 
simple,  and  they  are  usually  simple  when  the  disability  is  a 
visible  one.  When  a  foreman  has  a  one-armed  man  or  one 
with  both  legs  made  of  wood,  he  has  a  constant  reminder  of 
the  man's  handicap,  and  a  reminder  which  makes  the  disabil- 
ity seem  greater  than  it  really  is.  But  if  the  man  is  one  of 
those  who  are  doubly  unfortunate  in  that  the  disability  is  seri- 
ous and  yet  invisible,  his  lot  is  much  harder.  This  applies 
to  men  severely  gassed  during  the  war.  These  men  did 
very  nicely  while  they  were  living  in  camps  and  practically 
out  of  doors  all  the  time,  but  as  soon  as  they  came  home,  and 
went  back  to  sleeping  indoors  without  a  vestige  of  ventila- 
tion, their  health  failed.  Such  men  are  very  apt  to  blame 
the  shops,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  more  often  the  air 
at  home,  or  rather  the  lack  of  it,  that  causes  the  trouble.  It 
is  possible,  however,  that  this  may  have  a  good  effect  on  the 
rest  of  us,  as  these  men  will  have  to  insist  on  ventilation  in 
order  to  keep  well  once  they  are  cured  again,  and  that  will  be 
most  excellent  for  us,  no  matter  if  it  is  uncomfortable  while 
we  are  getting  used  to  it. 

The  first  thought  these  men  have,  and  the  same  applies  to 
the  great  number  of  tubercular  cases  as  well,  is  to  get  out- 
doors and  the  first  job  they  think  of  is  on  a  farm.  The  man 
who  was  born  and  raised  on  a  farm  does  not  think  of  this,  but 
the  man  whose  acquaintance  with  farm  life  is  confined  to  what 
he  has  seen  in  the  movies,  or  what  he  has  seen  when  driving 
out  on  a  Sunday  in  his  automobile,  is  carried  away  with  it, 
and  will  demand  as  a  right  that  he  be  trained  in  agriculture. 
The  experts  in  lung  troubles,  however,  seem  to  have  grown 
away  from  farm  life  as  a  cure  and  are  insisting  that  location 
is  one  of  the  least  of  their  problems.  But  they  do  insist  on 
an  abundance  of  fresh  air  and  a  proper  diet  to  build  up  the 
patient's  resisting  power.  Inasmuch  as  nearly  two-thirds  of 
the  patient's  life  is  outside  the  shop  they  are  now  laying  more 
stress  on  his  home  life  and  surroundings  and  not  so  much  to 
the  shop,  especially  after  the  case  has  been  arrested.  By 
an  arrested  case 'of  tuberculosis  they  mean,  not  a  cure,  but 
that  nature  has  walled  off  the  section  of  the  man's  lungs  which 
is  affected  and  that  unless  the  wall  breaks  down  there  is  no 


—  166  — 

more  danger  from  the  disease  than  to  any  other  man.  The 
wall  may,  however,  be  broken  down  through  sickness  of  an- 
other type,  through  the  effects  of  a  spree,  or  by  too  strenuous 
exercise  or  work,  especially  work  which  involves  movement  of 
the  arms  and  upper  part  of  the  body. 

The  men  who  are  suffering  from  bronchitis  are  likewise  in 
constant  need  of  plenty  of  fresh  air.  This  and  tuberculosis  are 
the  two  most  prevalent  disabilities  which  are  not  visible  but 
nevertheless  they  have  a  great  many  victims.  Such  men  need 
the  watchful  care  of  their  foreman,  and  he  also  needs  some  one 
to  watch  over  him  to  keep  reminding  him  not  to  assign  work 
which  may  break  down  the  man's  resistance  and  make  him 
go  all  through  the  process  of  arresting  the  disease  again.  A 
careless  workman,  or  a  careless  foreman  who  threatens  dis- 
charge if  an  unreasonable  order  is  not  carried  out,  may  easily 
scare  a  man  into  a  relapse.  There  is,  of  course,  great  danger 
that  men  will  discover  that  they  can  lay  back  on  the  job  and 
pretend  that  they  cannot  do  tasks  which  they  might  as  well 
do;  and  if  they  are  transferred  on  to  piece 'work  there  is  like- 
wise danger  that  these  same  men  in  their  greed  will  overdo 
and  acquire  a  real  disability.  Such  men  require  the  most  con- 
stant watching  not  only  by  the  doctors  but  by  the  employment 
office,  which  is  likely  to  have  a  better  perspective  than  the 
foreman  who  is  close  to  the  individual  worker. 

Everything  that  is  being  done  for  the  returned  soldier 
applies  to  the  industrial  cripple.  It  is  not  enough  that  he  be 
given  medical  and  surgical  care,, that  he  receive  a  fraction  of 
his  former  pay,  and  that  he  be  put  on  the  payroll  at  the  old 
rate,  but  he  should  also  be  placed  in  a  position  where  he  can 
command  his  old  rate  from  any  employer,  even  if  it  is  nec- 
essary to  spend  considerable  time  and  money  in  so  doing.  He 
could  well  afford  to  pay  for  this  training  himself  out  of  the 
increased  earnings  which  he  will  get,  but  he  has  not  the  cap- 
ital to  finance  it.  In  all  probability  the  state  and  federal 
governments  will  step  in  and  assist  the  employer  to  finance 
this  period  of  training  for  a  new  job.  It  is  their  duty  and  it 
is  to  be  hoped  they  will  recognize  it  as  such  and  act  ac- 
cordingly. 


THERE  is  a  vastly  different  attitude  from  that  of  a  few 
years  ago  toward  certain  people  who  do  not  harmonize 
with  the  social  world.  To-day  a  man  who  is  convicted  of  some 
minor  crime  or  misdemeanor  is  quite  generally  let  off  very 
easily  until  he  shows  signs  of  developing  a  law-breaking  habit, 
and  even  then  on  his  release  he  is  given  every  opportunity  to 
enter  industry,  for  to-day  the  curative  or  reformatory  quality 
of  work,  under  comfortable  and  pleasant  conditions,  is  be- 
coming well  recognized.  Nowadays,  when  a  man  leaves  prison 
he  comes  out  with  the  backing  of  real  friends  who  want  to 
see  him  make  good.  There  are  not  the  identifying  marks  of 
incarceration  that  one  would  suspect  from  reading  current  lit- 
erature. He  comes  out  and  goes  into  employment  unless  he 
wishes  it  otherwise.  He  goes  into  a  shop  where  his  record  is 
not  known  to  any  one  outside  the  employment  department  and 
even  then  to  only  a  very  few  in  that  department.  No  one 
in  the  shop  will  give  him  away  in  a  fit  of  anger  unless  it  is 
some  chance  acquaintance  who  knows  that  he  was  "put  away." 
He  literally  starts  afresh. 

Should  the  employment  department  take  on  these  men  if 
they  present  themselves?  It  is  a  question.  They  most  cer- 
tainly should  not  without  the  consent  of  the  management,  but 
with  the  approval  of  the  management  a  small  number  of  men 
well  scattered  through  the  shops  may  safely  be  taken  on,  espe- 
cially if  it  is  known  that  they  are  not  acquainted  with  each 
other.  The  great  danger  to  these  men  is  temptation.  They 
may  have  been  under  tremendous  and  peculiar  stress  when 
they  yielded  to  temptation,  and  it  must  always  be  remembered 
that  they  have  demonstrated  their  breaking  point.  They 

167 


—  168  — 

have  shown  a  limit.  No  man  should  be  tempted  to  anywhere 
near  the  breaking  point  any  more  than  a  steel  beam  should  be 
loaded  to  its  limit  of  elasticity.  For  this  reason  special  care 
should  be  taken  that  men  who  have  thus  suffered  should  not 
be  further  punished  by  the  shop  in  which  they  are  placed. 
They  should  be  paid  enough  so  that  their  minds  are  not  con- 
cerned with  financial  problems.  They  should  be  made  to  real- 
ize that  the  people  who  know  of  their  past  are  anxious  to  see 
them  live  it  down.  There  should  be  an  abundance  of  physical 
activity  about  their  work  so  as  to  keep  their  minds  off  them- 
selves, and  they  should  not  live  in  the  slums  but  somewhere 
where  they  will  associate  with  self-respecting  people  whose  ex- 
ample they  can  follow.  In  other  words,  they  should  be  in  the 
environment  that  every  man  needs,  not  merely  in  a  special 
environment  of  their  own.  It  should  also  be  kept  in  mind  that 
our  judicial  system  is  not  without  flaws,  and  the  man  may 
be  innocent  of  the  crime  for  which  he  was  convicted. 

In  addition  to  these  social  misfits  there  are  the  innocent 
mental  cases,  who  form  in  some  degree  a  part  of  the  force  of 
every  shop.  Discussion  of  mental  cases  is  to  some  extent  a 
delicate  matter  for  each  of  us  must  judge  by  our  own  stand- 
ards, and  of  those  we  are  none  too  sure.  We  always  should 
remember  the  saying  of  the  old  Quaker  who  told  his  wife 
"Every  one  is  queer  except  thee  and  me,  and  thou  art  a  little 
queer."  The  layman  who  attempts  to  discuss  this  subject 
with  an  expert  in  psychopathy,  or  to  read  his  books,  finds  him- 
self confused  by  a  series  of  long  words  some  of  which  are 
meant  to  convey  fine  distinctions  but  more  to  cover  up  their 
lack  of  exact  knowledge.  Stripped  of  all  verbosity  it  appears 
that  every  one,  according  to  one  writer,  who  does  not  learn 
by  experience  is  mentally  unbalanced.  As  a  people,  we  are 
inclined  to  be  too  severe  in  our  judgments  in  this  respect. 
Most  of  our  great  inventors  have  been  classed  as  mentally  un- 
balanced. In  the  minds  of  the  public  Langley  died  mildly 
insane,  but  now  we  know  that  he  was  simply  wiser  than  the 
men  of  his  generation. 

We  accordingly  modify  our  definition  so  as  to  cover  only 
those  who  try  the  same  things  and  under  the  same  conditions 
time  after  time,  and  who  refuse  to  try  anything  except  the 


—  169  — 

time  honored  methods.  In  the  latter  class  we  must  place  the 
men  with  obsessions  which  they  cannot  explain  but  on  which 
they  pin  their  faith.  These  men  may  fear  to  walk  under  a 
ladder  or  are  .unwilling  to  hire  men  with  red  hair  or  even  go 
so  far  as  to  condemning  all  men  of  one  nationality,  without 
knowing  any  of  them.  There  are  also  people  who  feel  bodily 
pains  where  no  apparent  physical  cause  for  them  can  be  found. 
We  are  of  late  becoming  more  careful  of  this  class  because 
physicians  are  discovering  sources  of  pain  that  they  did  not 
formerly  recognize  and  Christian  Scientists  are  finding  ways 
to  get  people  away  from  the  belief  of  imaginary  pain.  We 
must,  therefore,  conclude  that  mental  defectives  are  only  those 
who  either  have  not  the  normal  ability  to  reason,  or  who  do 
not  exercise  that  power.  Of  course  some  are  sick  and  can  be 
cured  by  physical  means.  Others  can  be  cured  by  suggestion, 
that  is  by  convincing  them  that  they  can  reason,  and  getting 
them  to  have  faith  in  the  person  guiding  them. 

It  is  not  profitable  to  place  such  men  where  they  are  un- 
happy, and  where  they  are  subject  to  unnecessary  irritations. 
This  is  of  course  also  true  of  other  people,  but  those  who  do 
pioneer  work  must  expect  to  meet  trying  conditions  into  which 
mental  cases  should  not  be  allowed  to  venture.  A  great  many 
mild  cases  were  intensely  aggravated  in  the  army  and  navy 
by  the  sudden  change  from  an  easy-going  life  to  one  in  which 
commands  were  barked  out  and  no  appreciable  interval  of 
time  allowed  for  the  comprehension  of  orders;  very  necessary 
from  a  military  point  of  view  and  very  bad  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  troubled  mind.  Time  alone  will  bring  these  men 
back  to  their  old  state.  A  nagging  foreman  has  the  same  ef- 
fect as  a  barking  sergeant.  Such  a  man  should  not  be  allowed 
to  have  any  of  these  cases  under  him.  He  will  only  make 
them  worse  and  throw  away  their  possible  productive  capacity. 
If  we  are  to  get  the  utmost  production,  every  one  must  work 
who  is  capable  of  work  and  the  mere  fact  that  a  man  is  slow 
of  comprehension,  that  he  sticks  in  ruts,  and  that  he  seems 
stubborn  about  changing  cannot  be  allowed  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  his  efforts  to  help  increase  that  production. 

In  the  shop  this  mental  deficiency  shows  itself  in  an  inabil- 
ity to  think  quickly  or  cooperate  and  in  stubbornness.  The 


—  170  — 

first  of  these  can  be  overcome  by  putting  those  so  afflicted  on 
routine  work  and  taking  plenty  of  time  to  break  them  in  on 
the  job.  Some  can  do  real  complex  work,  after  a  long  pe- 
riod of  experience,  if  they  only  have  to  take  one  step  at  a 
time.  This  will  apply  by  far  to  the  greatest  number,  but 
there  are  always  some  who  cannot  endure  routine  work,  who 
must  have  variety,  and  whose  trouble  comes  with  too  quick 
thinking  rather  than  too  slow.  These  men  need  to  have  iso- 
lated jobs  where  they  do  not  have  other  people  under  them 
and  where  no  great  degree  of  team  work  is  required.  Such 
men  do  well  as  repair  men,  adjusters,  time  clerks,  or  painters, 
in  fact  in  any  jobs  which  do  not  call  for  leadership,  or  the  neces- 
sity for  following.  For  example,  a  man  who  had  demonstrated 
his  inability  to  get  along  with  others  was  made  a  designer  of 
the  machines  on  which  he  had  formerly  worked  and  with  great 
success,  and  another  was  made  an  investigator  where  the  very 
qualities  which  formerly  had  made  him  seem  queer  then  made 
him  successful. 

Stubbornness  may  come  from  either  group,  from  the  first 
because  of  sheer  inability  to  comprehend  new  ways,  or  from 
the  other  through  belief  that  some  other  way  is  better,  but 
lacking  the  power  to  express  that  belief  in  convincing  terms. 
In  this  latter  class  must  be  placed  all  men  who  "buck  the 
crowd."  All  men  who  are  ahead  of  their  times  are  also  usually 
classed  with  them,  but  only  until  the  time  comes  when  they 
are  proved  to  have  been  right.  We  should,  therefore,  be  very 
careful  in  making  up  the  classification.  Usually  we  consider 
all  conservatives  as  being  intensely  sane  and  they  in  turn  clas- 
sify all  radicals  as  at  least  mildly  insane.  It  is  equally  fair 
for  the  latter  to  think  the  same  of  the  conservative  who  is  so 
slow  to  change  with  the  times  that  he  holds  back  the  progress 
of  the  shop.  For  example,  the  executive  who  will  not  accept 
modern  machinery  and  methods  of  production  is  just  as  much 
of  a  mental  case  as  is  the  workman  who  slows  up  production 
by  being  unable  to  comprehend  new  methods.  Similarly  the 
designer  who  insists  on  giving  his  firm  designs  for  which  the 
market  will  not  be  ready  for  ten  years  is  just  as  bad  as  the 
man  who  demanded  ten  years  ago  what  are  now  accepted  as 
normal  working  conditions  in  the  shop. 


—  171  — 

To  discover  such  men  in  the  shop  and  to  suggest  their 
treatment  when  found  is  a  very  delicate  one  for  the  employ- 
ment manager.  The  easiest  way  of  course  is  to  discharge 
them,  but  the  better  way  is  to  study  each  case  and  then  seek 
out  the  foreman  who  had  a  sense  of  fair  play  and  a  fatherly 
interest  in  his  men  and  place  these  men  with  him.  This  is 
one  of  the  few  instances  where  paternalism  is  needed  and  is 
justified.  These  people  are  not  wholly  grown  up  and  most 
of  them,  the  sluggish  type  in  any  event,  prefer  paternal  treat- 
ment and  gravitate  ultimately  to  a  place  where  they  receive  it. 

Finally,  there  are  the  men  who  are  ahead  of  their  time, 
and  whose  ability  to  cooperate  is  limited  by  their  knowledge 
that  the  people  with  whom  they  might  cooperate  are  behind 
the  times.  Such  men  are  valuable  and  many  a  firm  has  re- 
gretted in  after  years  that  they  permitted  men  of  this  type  to 
leave  them.  It  is  well  to  isolate  them,  however,  and  to  tol- 
erate them  for  the  good  they  do. 


CHAPTER  XXV 


MEN  work,  not  only  for  money,  but  to  avoid  loss.  If  a 
man  receives  a  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  then  meets 
with  an  accident  which  costs  him  in  medical  attention  and  loss 
of  pay  another  thousand,  he  has  really  worked  a  year  for  noth- 
ing, even  if  he  comes  out  of  the  accident  as  well  as  ever.  It 
is  well  known  that  many  more  accidents  occur  through  the 
carelessness  of  workers  than  through  the  neglect  of  employ- 
ers to  provide  proper  safeguards.  Here,  therefore,  are  two 
separate  and  yet  intertwined  problems.  One  that  of  persuad- 
ing employers  not  only  to  provide  safety  devices  but  to  en- 
force safe  practices;  the  other  that  of  getting  employees  to 
accept  those  safe  practices  and  abide  by  them. 

The  first  part  of  the  problem,  that  of  securing  mechanical 
safeguards,  is  usually  the  simplest.  If  the  company  has  been 
making  money  it  is  easy  to  get  appropriations  for  this  pur- 
pose as  it  is  an  evidence  of  good  faith,  for  it  practically 
says  to  the  workmen,  "We  are  backing  this  Safety  First 
matter  with  our  money,  so  you  know  we  believe  in  it." 
The  difficulty  is  to  find  out  what  safety  practices  are  of  value 
and  then  to  put  them  into  effect.  It  is  easy  to  obtain  me- 
chanical safety  devices  because  all  we  need  to  do  is  to  write 
an  order  to  the  engineering  department  to  do  the  job.  Un- 
fortunately there  is  no  department  that  has  to  furnish  and 
enforce  safe  practices,  for  the  safety  engineering  department 
as  usually  constituted  seldom  has  a  chance  to  really  enforce  its 
rulings.  It  usually  finds  a  condescending  compliance  which 
is  easier  than  opposition. 

Safe  practices  can  usually  only  be  arrived  at  by  experi- 

172 


—  173  — 

ment.  The  safe  practice  must  not  impede  production.  If 
it  accelerates  it  the  safety  engineer  is  a  good  man.  It  is  only 
possible  to  try  out  new  methods  of  doing  work  behind  closed 
doors  for  if  it  became  known  that  the  safety  engineer  had  tried 
a  method  which  slowed  the  work  down  50  per  cent  it  would  be 
next  to  impossible  for  him  to  put  over  the  new  scheme,  even- 
though  it  helped  the  piece-workers  to  add  50  per  cent  to  their 
earnings.  Safety  engineering  ought  to  be  linked  up  closely 
with  the  engineering  and  the  production  departments.  If  it  is 
not  it  cannot  give  the  aid  that  it  should  and  it  must  accord- 
ingly work  without  a  knowledge  of  what  is  going  on  around  it. 

A  good  safety  man  should  first  of  all  be  a  good  engineer. 
He  should  realize  that  the  shop  must  maintain  production. 
He  should  be  in  touch  with  the  employment  department  so 
that  he  knows  what  kind  of  men  are  being  taken  on,  so  that 
he  can  tighten  up  on  his  safety  practices  if  the  quality  goes 
down  and  let  up  on  them  when  it  is  safe  to  do  so.  It  should 
always  be  borne  in  mind  that  accidents  are  proportionate  to 
the  lack  of  intelligence  of  the  men  employed.  Much  of  what 
seems  like  carelessness  is  really  due  to  ignorance,  and  igno- 
rance in  its  turn  may  be  due  to  lack  of  understanding  of 
English  or  to  slowness  in  getting  used  to  new  ways  of  doing 
the  work. 

In  times  past  when  every  one  in  the  shop  worked  his  way 
up  and  men  took  an  interest  in  their  fellow  workers  and 
warned  them  of  dangers,  there  was  little  need  of  safeguards. 
Back  gears  did  not  need  to  be  covered  because  every  one  knew 
which  were  the  danger  points  and  kept  away  from  them,  and 
the  same  was  true  of  the  buzz  saw,  the  jointer,  and  the  shaper. 
Accidents  were  then  few  and  far  between  and  if  the  same 
men  were  available  to-day  our  shops  would  have  no  need  of 
guards.  Now  workmen  of  a  very  much  lower  caliber  are 
doing  work  which  we  formerly  thought  demanded  skill  ac- 
quired through  long  years  of  practice.  These  men  are  good 
imitators  but  for  the  most  part  poor  mechanics.  They  are 
also  very  apt  to  imitate  the  careless  things  they  see  done,  for 
they  do  not  realize  the  possibility  of  danger.  They  see  a  man 
let  his  fingers  touch  a  running  gear  on  the  side  that  is  running 
away  from  the  danger  point  and  so  they  let  their  fingers  touch 


—  174  — 

one  on  the  side  that  is  running  toward  danger  with  conse- 
quent loss  of  fingers  or  perhaps  a  hand. 

The  other  problem,  that  of  securing  the  cooperation  of 
men  who  are  normally  careless,  is  a  matter  of  education. 
There  is  abundant  literature  to  be  had,  moving  picture  films 
that  can  be  shown,  and  examples  of  the  serious  consequences 
of  carelessness  that  can  be  and  must  be  continually  brought  to 
the  attention  of  the  men.  Very  few  people  who  constantly 
take  chances  themselves  realize  that  bad  accidents  occur  to 
many  who  do  the  same  things.  Take  the  simple  matter  of 
getting  on  and  off  a  street  car  when  in  motion.  It  is  perfectly 
safe  to  do  this  under  certain  conditions,  but  if  the  pavement  is 
slippery,  or  the  light  is  poor,  or  the  hand  rail  on  the  car  is  loose, 
or  is  not  where  it  was  expected,  it  is  dangerous.  It  is  also  very 
dangerous  to  the  novice  who  thinks  he  must  imitate  a  more  ex- 
perienced person  or  to  people  of  the  non-athletic  type  who 
are  sometimes  in  just  as  much  of  a  hurry  as  any  one  else.  For 
the  sake  of  the  example,  those  of  us  who  can  swing  on  and 
off  a  street  car  should  stop,  even  though  we  feel  no  danger  in 
it  ourselves.  Not  all  of  us  are  sensible  enough  for  that,  so 
the  street  car  companies,  aided  and  abetted  by  the  state  leg- 
islatures, have  made  it  necessary  for  us  to  be  boxed  into  the 
cars  and  not  allowed  to  get  on  or  off  until  after  the  car  stops. 

The  organization  of  a  safety  engineering  department  may 
take  on  two  different  aspects,  or  it  may  be  a  combination  of 
the  two.  These  may  be  called  the  professional  and  the  ama- 
teur. In  the  first  the  planning  of  safety  work,  and  its  execu- 
tion is  in  the  hands  of  men  whose  sole  duties  are  to  take  care 
of  that  work.  They  accept  full  responsibility  for  it  so  far  as 
the  limitations  of  their  authority  will  allow,  and  do  not  as  a 
rule  require  cooperation  beyond  obedience  to  their  rules  and 
regulations.  Whatever  of  an  educational  nature  is  done  is 
done  under  their  supervision.  The  other  plan  involves  a  shop 
safety  committee  made  up  of  men  from  different  departments. 
These  men  are  foremen  and  workmen,  and  their  safety  work 
is  purely  a  side  line,  usually  an  interesting  one  but  a  side 
issue  nevertheless  which  they  have  to  lay  aside  whenever 
their  real  work  is  pressing.  The  result  of  this  is  that  when 
business  is  quiet,  and  the  men  in  the  shop  are  well  acquainted 


—  175  — 

with  their  work,  there  is  very  good  and  efficient  safety  work 
done,  but  when  the  work  is  rushing  they  are  busy  with  pro- 
duction and  the  safety  work  suffers  just  when  it  is  most  needed. 

There  are,  however,  real  merits  to  the  amateur  safety  com- 
mittee, especially  in  parts  of  the  country  where  membership  on 
committees,  and  especially  those  which  entitle  the  member  to 
a  badge,  are  valued.  If  the  membership  is  rotated  and  if 
the  committee  is  split  up  into  a  number  of  sub-committees 
with  jurisdiction  over  small  floor  areas  so  that  in  a  committee 
of  three  one  has  had  at  least  one  month's  experience  and  an- 
other two  months',  while  the  third  is  a  new  member,  there 
soon  is  a  quite  considerable  body  of  "alumni"  of  the  safety 
committee  all  cf  which  body  can  wear  a  safety  insignia  which 
may  soon  come  to  be  valued.  If  the  members  of  this  com- 
mittee are  given  some  little  extra  authority  such  as  repri- 
manding any  one  seen  indulging  in  unsafe  practices,  there  is 
enough  responsibility  and  authority  to  appeal  to  a  very  great 
number  of  men  and  make  them  show  an  interest  which  can 
only  have  a  good  effect  on  the  morale  of  the  whole  organiza- 
tion. In  a  very  mild  way  there  is  also  a  certain  democratiza- 
tion which  comes  about  through  the  feeling  lliat  here  is  a  way 
in  which  a  man,  without  even  becoming  a  foreman,  does  be- 
come an  active,  potent  part  of  the  organization. 

The  best  in  each  of  these  methods  should  be  sought  out 
and  employed.  The  professional  plan  provides  a  responsible 
body  which  knows  that  it  will  be  held  accountable  for  failure 
to  provide  safeguards,  and  to  establish  and  promote  their  use 
and  the  use  of  safe  methods  of  doing  work.  It  can  only  avoid 
blame  by  proving  that  they  made  recommendation  to  the 
Board  of  Directors  which  if  adopted  would  have  made  the  ac- 
cident impossible.  The  amateur  plan  helps  to  form  a  consid- 
erable body  of  men  who  have  an  interest  in  safety  matters 
and  who  in  a  way  police  the  plant,  and  help  turn  public 
opinion  in  favor  of  the  safety  engineering  department. 

There  is  always  need  of  good  feeling  among  workmen 
toward  the  safety  department  because  it  is  quite  the  rule  for 
foremen  to  belittle  its  work.  This  is  often  the  expression  of 
a  certain  amount  of  jealousy.  They  feel  that  the  safety  en- 
gineer takes  over  a  little  of  their  prerogative  and  lessens  in 


—  176  — 

some  small  way  their  own  job.  It  is  probably  true  that  the 
further  the  foreman  is  from  being  a  czar  in  his  department  the 
less  awe  he  creates  among  his  subordinates.  This  does  not 
mean  that  they  respect  him  the  less,  but  it  does  mean  that 
he  does  not  feel  his  own  importance  so  much.  If  the  fore- 
men can  be  given  some  part  in  the  safety  work  so  that  their 
subordinates  feel  that  the  safety  engineer  is  not  in  some  way 
dominating  the  foreman,  it  adds  to  the  latter's  pride  and 
makes  him  imagine  he  is  being  held  in  higher  esteem  by  them 
than  he  otherwise  would  be. 

Under  any  system  whatever  the  arrangement  by  which 
safe  practices  are  put  in  effect,  or  whatever  organization  car- 
ries them  out  and  installs  safety  devices,  it  is  necessary  that 
it  have  authority  to  stop  machinery  which  is  left  unguarded 
and  prevent  its  use  during  the  time  it  is  unguarded.  This 
authority  will  for  the  time  being  stop  production  and  will  thus 
interfere  with  the  record  of  that  room  or  that  machine,  con- 
sequently it  brings  down  the  wrath  of  the  foreman,  and  if  the 
man  is  on  piece  work,  of  the  workman  also.  For  this  reason 
if  no  other  the  safety  work  should  be  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  some  department  which  is  not  subject  to  the  production 
department,  as  otherwise  that  department  in  spite  of  its  own 
best  judgment  and  what  would  be  the  calm  judgment  of  the 
men  affected,  would  allow  production  to  go  on,  thereby 
jeopardizing  the  men  on  the  job. 

The  hardest  plant  to  thoroughly  guard  and  in  which  to 
secure  safe  practices  is  the  one  which  keeps  no  records,  but 
in  which  the  superintendent  claims  that  there  have  been  no 
accidents  for  many  years.  Such  a  record  is  desirable  and  a 
superintendent  who  can  show  it  is  certainly  entitled  to  credit 
for  safety  work  of  his  own,  but  unfortunately  it  usually  de- 
velops that  the  reason  he  claims  long  immunity  from  accident 
is  that  he  has  a  short  memory.  He  forgets  that  a  man  broke 
his  arm  last  year  and  a  man  was  killed  three  months  before 
that.  These  things  are  not  in  the  record.  They  came  at 
scattered  intervals  and  they  made  little  impression  except  on 
his  sympathies. 

There  is  also  the  case  of  the  superintendent  who  says  that 
he  pays  insurance  premiums  to  cover  the  care  of  the  wounded. 


—  177  — 

and  that  discharges  his  obligations.  He  should  be  told,  and 
told  with  emphasis,  that  money  cannot  discharge  these  obli- 
gations. A  man  disfigured  for  life  has  lost  more  than  can  be 
paid  by  money.  A  man  may  earn  just  as  much  after  his  arm 
is  broken  and  healed,  but  a  man  conscious  that  he  has  a  body 
that  is  a  drawback  is  injured  in  a  way  that  money  does  not 
cover.  A  man  who  has  a  crippled  and  distorted  hand  cannot 
rise  in  some  industries  except  through  sheer  genius.  If  he  was 
an  elevator  boy  and  his  hand  was  caught  in  a  defective  gate, 
he  may  make  just  as  good  an  elevator  boy  as  ever,  but  who 
knows  into  what  he  might  have  developed.  It  is  sentiment 
that  keeps  us  from  giving  this  boy  a  chance,  just  as  much  so 
as  it  is  sentiment  that  gives  the  soldier  with  the  same  handi- 
cap the  preferences.  We  go  to  extremes  in  these  matters. 
The  fact  that  a  single  preventable  accident  occurs  in  a 
plant  should  be  a  matter  of  deep  regret,  and  something 
that  should  at  least  make  every  one  more  determined  to  see 
that  there  is  not  another.  If  we  take  the  natural  life  of 
man  according  to  the  scriptural  three  score  years  and  ten, 
the  manager  who  negligently  allows  the  lives  of  seventy  men 
to  be  shortened  by  a  year  apiece  has  murdered  his  man.  If 
more  of  them  would  look  at  it  in  this  light,  and  not  merely 
in  connection  with  safety  work  there  would  be  much  more 
happiness. 

It  is  also  troublesome  to  define  just  what  shall  be  rated  as 
an  accident,  but  this  is  only  of  consequence  when  we  are  keep- 
ing score.  A  scratch  from  a  nail  is  usually  accidental.  That 
is,  men  seldom  purposely  try  to  do  it.  If  it  happens  that  the 
nail  was  loaded  with  bacteria  of  the  wrong  kind,  or  if  the 
man's  physical  condition  was  poor,  it  may  have  resulted  in 
blood  poisoning,  sickness,  loss  of  time,  loss  of  production,  ex- 
pense of  treatment,  much  mental  suffering  and  anxiety,  and 
possibly  a  hand  disfigured  with  a  scar  for  life.  What  was  the 
accident?  WTas  it  the  scratch,  which  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten 
would  have  healed  without  trouble,  or  was  it  that  this  par- 
ticular nail  carried  infection,  or  was  it  that  the  man's  hand 
was  dirty  and  carried  germs  which  could  get  into  the  system 
through  the  wound?  Was  it  that  the  man  did  not  report  the 
accident  and  get  it  properly  dressed,  or  was  it  the  fact  that 


—  178  — 

the  man  was  in  a  run-down  condition  and  did  not  offer  the  re- 
sistance to  the  germs  that  he  should?  In  the  last  case  we  can 
also  ask  whether  the  man  got  in  this  run-down  condition  from 
overwork  or  overplay. 

All  these  accidents  may  happen  in  turn  or  in  combina- 
tions, but  in  any  case  the  accident  was  started  by  a  nail  which 
was  where  it  ought  not  to  have  been.  If  we  charge  up  nail 
scratches  which  occur  in  a  department  and  which  come  to  the 
attention  of  the  hospital,  to  that  department,  there  is  danger 
that  the  foreman  will  wink  at  the  practice  of  tying  up  each 
other's  wounds,  and  may  even  encourage  it  as  the  easiest  way 
to  keep  his  score  down.  That  is,  if  the  hospital  tries  to  excite 
rivalry  by  posting  scores,  it  may  defeat  its  own  ends  by  tempt- 
ing bad  departments  to  camouflage  its  accidents.  A  casual 
visitor  in  a  shop  with  splendid  hospital  facilities,  if  he  is  not 
with  any  one  in  authority,  is  almost  sure  to  see  men  bandag- 
ing themselves  and  each  other. 

The  only  safe  practice  is  to  have  all  accidents  of  even  the 
most  trivial  nature  sent  to  the  hospital.  There  are  two  prob- 
lems which  arise  even  then ;  the  first  is  that  of  the  piece-worker 
who  hates  to  lose  a  few  minutes  to  run  over  and  have  a  wound 
dressed,  or  the  sensitive  man  who  dreads  the  physical  pain 
due  to  the  rough  handling  his  wound  will  probably  get;  and 
the  second  is  that  of  the  man  who  likes  to  go  to  the  hospital 
because  it  takes  him  away  from  work  that  he  likes  so  little 
that  the  hospital  seems  a  luxury.  The  first  two  cases  should 
be  sent,  and  the  doctors  should  be  cautioned  that  some  one 
of  their  victims  may  turn  doctor  himself  some  day  and  give 
them  a  dose  of  their  own  medicine.  Some  of  the  most 
capable  doctors  are  brutes,  probably  because  their  services  are 
needed  so  badly  that  no  one  dares  tell  them  the  truths  which 
they  ought  to  know,  consequently  as  they  grow  in  ability  and 
practice  tKey  lose  all  sense  of  humanity,  and  cure  for  the 
cure's  sake  and  not  for  the  man's  sake.  The  last  man,  the  one 
who  runs  to  the  hospital  to  get  away  from  work,  is  probably 
sick,  mentally  if  not  physically,  and  probably  needs  other 
treatment  than  that  for  which  he  came. 

We  have  also  to  consider  that  men  naturally  gravitate 
toward  the  best  jobs  they  can  get.  If  a  job  is  dangerous,  if 


—  179  — 

the  last  man  on  it  was  hurt  in  the  regular  course  of  his  work, 
no  man  wants  to  take  it  unless  he  is  making  more  money  by 
so  doing.  That  is,  jobs  which  show  signs  of  danger  must 
either  pay  more  money  or  draw  a  lower  class  of  men.  This 
does  not  show  on  the  cost  accounts,  but  it  is  there.  During 
the  war  a  married  man  was  granted  exemption  on  the  ground 
that  his  dependents  needed  him  more  than  the  country 
did.  On  the  same  ground  the  more  dangerous  jobs  in  the  shop 
should  be  reserved  for  the  single  men.  However  there  is  the 
tendency  to  hire  married  men  and  then  assign  them  the  jobs 
that  need  doing,  and  since  a  married  man  will  usually  stand 
for  more  than  a  single  man,  it  is  usual  to  find  married  men  in 
these  dangerous  places. 

The  safety  engineering  department  should  also  represent 
the  insurance  carrier  so  far  as  is  practicable  in  dealing  with 
the  men.  If  the  company  carries  its  own  insurance,  as  is  pos- 
sible in  some  states,  then  the  safety  department  should  be 
the  active  link  between  the  treasurer  and  the  men.  He  should 
pay  them,  either  by  a  cash  payment  or  by  a  voucher  drawn 
on  the  cashier,  all  their  claims  whether  for  medical  treatment, 
for  hospital  bills  or  for  compensation.  The  department  should 
also  be  in  a  position  to  exceed  the  legal  payments  for  com- 
pensation whenever  the  merits  of  the  case  seem  to  demand  it. 

The  compensation  laws  are  framed  to  avoid  the  danger  of 
malingering,  but  even  so  a  thrifty  man  may  easily  join  mutual 
benefit  associations  and  secret  orders,  so  that  financially  he 
is  much  better  off  sick  than  well.  Most  men,  however,  have 
not  been  so  provident,  or  are  more  honest,  and  their  families 
need  every  cent  of  the  income  which  they  formerly  had  in 
order  to  make  both  ends  meet.  It  should  be  possible  to  treat 
such  cases  just  as  the  general  manager  himself  would  have 
done  it  years  ago  when  the  shop  was  small,  by  paying  full 
wages  while  the  man  is  out  of  work  and  adding  whatever 
bonus  seems  appropriate.  At  the  best  our  laws  provide  for 
rather  meager  medical  treatment  and  for  only  about  two-thirds 
pay,  during  a  time  when  naturally  the  family  expenses  are 
very  greatly  increased. 

If  the  safety  department  keeps  in  close  touch  with  these 
men  they  can  win  their  confidence  better  than  any  one  else. 


—  180  — 

There  is  at  least  one  good  feature  of  the  compensation  laws 
in  that  they  virtually  put  a  premium  on  coming  back  to  work 
in  the  same  place.  If  a  man  is  hurt  and  does  not  show  up 
again  there  are  always  rumors  of  permanent  disability  and 
disfigurement,  just  as  soon  after  the  armistice  there  were  wild 
rumors  that  a  certain  hospital  in  New  York  City  was  filled 
with  hundreds  and  then  thousands  of  "basket  cases"  (men 
with  both  arms  and  legs  amputated),  and  like  that  rumor, 
which  was  not  even  based  on  one  such  case,  these  are  found, 
if  the  man  comes  back,  to  be  as  utterly  untrue.  The  confi- 
dence and  good  will  of  workmen  are  worth  more  to  the  busi- 
ness than  most  people  think. 

Evory  one  realizes  that  there  is  a  great  advantage  in  hav- 
ing the  first  choice  of  workmen,  that  the  tail-enders  are  not 
profitable  no  matter  for  how  little  they  will  work,  and  that 
there  is  not  much  difference  in  rates  even  though  there  is  a 
great  difference  in  production.  The  first  choice  men  are  not 
attracted  by  advertisements,  they  do  not  take  up  jobs  at  ran- 
dom, nor  do  they  leave  them  thoughtlessly.  They  move  from 
one  shop  to  another  only  after  careful  inquiry  among  their 
friends,  and  they  are  pretty  sure  that  the  new  shop  is  better 
than  the  old  before  they  apply  for  a  job.  These  men  are 
much  influenced  by  the  safety  work  of  the  new  shop.  They 
are  for  the  most  part  careful,  but  if  in  an  absent-minded  mo- 
ment they  put  a  hand  in  a  dangerous  place  they  want  to  feel 
that  the  company  will  take  good  care  of  them. 

Knowledge  of  these  conditions  is  widespread.  A  shop  may 
let  some  poor  devil  go  who  got  mixed  up  in  an  accident.  He 
may  have  come  back  to  his  old  job,  but  they  found  an  expe- 
dient to  relieve  him  of  duty  on  some  ground  other  than  his 
disability,  and  they  were  glad  to  be  rid  of  the  burden.  Can 
they  keep  this  a  secret?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  They  may  next 
hear  from  it  at  some  convention  a  thousand  miles  from  home. 
Inside  secrets  are  secrets  only  to  those  who  stay  at  home. 
They  travel  and  a  black  mark  is  set  up  in  many  men's  minds. 

There  is  also  great  danger  of  an  increase  in  accident  cases 
if  the  settlements  are  handled  by  professional  agents  from  the 
insurance  company.  It  is  impossible  for  these  men  to  have 
a  sympathetic  interest  in  the  multitude  of  cases  that  they 


—  181  — 

must  handle,  in  one  shop  this  morning,  in  another  this  after- 
noon, and  so  on.  A  man  with  a  crushed  finger  is  to  them  a 
crushed  finger  case  entitled  to  so  many  dollars  a  week  and  so 
much  medical  care.  It  belongs  to  case  number  so-and-so,  and 
if  you  want  to  look  it  up  you  can  find  out  what  the  man's  name 
is,  but  better  not  because  it  may  be  Szcyweinzkicz  or  some- 
thing like  that  and  if  you  spell  it  wrong  the  records  will  get  all 
mixed  up.  This  is  of  course  not  the  fault  of  the  insurance 
man ;  it  is  his  misfortune,  and  yours  if  you  let  him  make  the 
settlement.  The  safety  department  can  pay  out  this  same 
money  and  produce  the  impression  that  the  company  is  genu- 
inely interested  in  the  man  as  well  as  his  case.  They  can 
also  help  in  other  ways  besides  with  money  because  they  are 
one  with  the  welfare  department,  and  they  know  the  man's 
home  conditions.  Likewise  with  the  aid  of  the  medical  de- 
partment and  the  employment  department,  they  can  get  him 
back  into  the  shop  and  at  least  mentally  occupied  long  before 
the  insurance  man  would  have  the  right  to  send  him  back  to 
work;  in  fact,  in  every  way  the  safety  department  is  in  the 
logical  position  to  handle  the  financial  part  of  the  case  than 
is  any  one  else. 


PART  III 


PROMOTING  INDUSTRIAL  RELATIONS 


Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 


XXVI 

XXVII 

XXVIII 

XXIX 

XXX 

XXXI 

XXXII 


Chapter  XXXIII 


THE  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  OF  LABOR  185 

HOURS  OF  LABOR 193 

THE  COMMISSARY  DEPARTMENT  .  204 

HOUSING 214 

HEALTH  AND  SANITATION  .  .  .  228 

REST  AND  RECREATION  ....  237 
FINANCIAL  RELATIONS  AND  LABOR 

TURNOVER 251 

NoN-FlNANCIAL  REASONS  FOR  LABOR 

TURNOVER  266 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
THE  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  OF  LABOR 

IT  has  been  such  a  habit  with  us  to  grant  the  owner  of  real 
estate  the  privilege  of  putting  up  trespass  signs,  and  our 
trespass  laws  have  been  so  firmly  upheld  by  the  courts  that 
we  have  quite  naturally  come  to  believe  that  there  must  be 
a  right  to  forbid  trespassing,  and  the  right  to  privacy  and 
sole  enjoyment  has,  therefore,  hardly  been  questioned.  It  is 
time,  however,  that  we  should  look  into  the  matters  and  see, 
not  in  a  radical  way,  but  in  a  thorough  way,  whether  such 
rights  as  they  exist  in  law  and  in  habit  may  not  be  subject  to 
considerable  modification. 

If  one  of  us  walks  across  a  friend's  pp' '  \a  the  country 
there  is  no  harm  done,  and  it  is  not  trefr  osing.  If  we  tramp 
across  his  blueberry  patch  and  eat  a  few  handfuls  of  berries 
there  is  no  perceptible  wrong  done,  but  if  we  walk  across  a 
man's  lawn  in  the  city,  and  by  our  example  suggest  to  others 
the  propriety  of  also  doing  so,  then  we  do  a  real  wrong  and 
should  very  properly  be  stopped.  Furthermore  our  city  friend 
should  not  be  compelled  to  stop  us  physically  by  building  a 
fence,  or  by  knocking  us  down,  but  by  appeal  to  the  police 
force  which  all  help  support. 

This  analogy  applies  equally  well  to  some  of  the  friction 
which  arises  between  employers  and  employees.  When  a  firm 
has  invested  a  certain  amount  of  capital  in  land,  fenced  it  in 
and  built  shops  or  stores  upon  it,  they  immediately  assume 
a  right  to  say  who  shall  or  shall  not  enter.  We,  for  the  most 
part,  grant  their  right  to  say  so  because  that  is  the  law,  and 
we  respect  the  law  whether  we  believe  it  to  be  just  or  not. 
Of  course  the  spirit  underlying  the  law  of  trespass  is  the  pre- 
vention of  damage.  To  prevent  any  one  damaging  property 

185 


—  186  — 

we  say  that  the  owner  shall  have  the  right  to  prohibit  every- 
body or  anybody  from  trespassing.  The  owner  may  classify 
people.  He  may  say  that  only  well-dressed  people  shall  be 
allowed.  He  may  say  that  only  men  shall  be  admitted.  He 
may  say  that  only  those  belonging  to  certain  churches  or  soci- 
eties shall  be  excluded.  In  all  these  cases  he  is  supported 
by  the  law  and  we,  the  people,  are  responsible  for  the  law. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  legal  for  a  man  and  his 
friend  to  agree  not  to  go  through  another  man's  pasture,  or 
across  his  lawn,  or  enter  upon  his  land,  or  into  his  buildings, 
but  the  two  have  no  right  to  endeavor  to  persuade  others  to 
join  them  for  to  do  so  may  in  many  cases  work  an  injury 
to  the  owner.  Accordingly  we  rightfully  should  consider 
whether  or  not  the  action  on  either  side  does  harm,  rather  than 
whether  it  is  within  a  law  which  was  a  crude  attempt  made 
hundreds  of  years  ago  to  meet  conditions  which  have  since 
been  much  changed. 

Let  us  apply  this  to  strikes  and  boycotts.  Nearly  every 
shop  loses  the  equivalent  of  all  of  its  help  once  every  year, 
not  all  at  once  of  course  but  fairly  prorated  day  by  day.  More- 
over it  cannot  be  proved  that  this  larger  number  were  influ- 
enced by  each  other,  or  that  the  management  was  distinctly 
to  blame  and  that  it  intentionally  or  unintentionally  fostered 
the  very  feeling  which  produces  the  outflow.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  some  one  person  or  a  group  of  persons,  with  or  with- 
out cause,  deliberately  tries  to  persuade  others  to  injure  the 
company  by  leaving  it  there  is  cause  for  action,  and  they  can 
theoretically  be  enjoined  from  doing  this  injury.  Theoret- 
ically, because  there  is  no  punishment  enforceable. 

Likewise,  whenever  a  concern  decides  that  it  will  arbi- 
trarily exclude  any  man  from  employment  it  does  that  man 
a  wrong.  If  the  concern  says  to  John  Smith  that  he  shall 
never  work  for  it,  it  is  doing  him  a  wrong  and  it  is  not  doing 
itself  any  good.  It  is  doing  Smith  a  wrong  because  Smith  is 
one  of  a  great  multitude  of  men  who  make  it  possible  for  the 
firm  to  exist,  and  because  Smith  is  a  part  of  the  great  gen- 
eral public  which  grants  the  rights  by  which  the  concern  makes 
a  profit.  Furthermore,  the  concern  does  itself  a  harm  be- 
cause Smith,  no  matter  what  his  present  shortcomings  may 


—  187  — 

be,  is  yet  a  man;  he  may  change  for  the  better,  and  he  may 
make  an  excellent  and  profitable  employee. 

All  strikes  and  lockouts  depend  upon  whether  or  not  the 
people  in  general  control  the  government.  Any  strike  or  lock- 
out must  necessarily  work  harm  because  it  causes  loss  of  pro- 
duction which  cannot  be  made  up.  The  length  of  the  work- 
ing day  is  not  so  very  important  because  each  individual  has 
only  about  so  much  vitality  which  can  be  called  forth  before 
he  must  rest.  The  days  that  are  lost  are  important  because 
they  can  only  be  made  up  if  the  life  of  the  individual  be 
lengthened,  which  is  not  at  all  probable  in  case  of  enforced 
absence  from  work,  no  matter  what  may  be  the  effect  of  an 
ordinary  vacation  from  worries. 

This  harm  may  apparently  be  made  up  to  the  winner  by 
the  increased  wage  won  as  a  result  of  strikes,  or  the  saving  of 
wages  won  by  the  owners,  but  either  advantage  is  "robbing 
Peter  to  pay  Paul,"  Peter,  however,  not  recognizing  that  he 
has  been  robbed.  In  other  words,  the  public  foots  the  bill, 
and  since  the  public  also  makes  the  laws  which  allows  it  to 
play  the  part  of  Peter  in  this  little  drama,  it  has  only  itself 
to  blame. 

When  we  consider  that  the  total  number  of  people  in  this 
country  who  are  sufficiently  organized  to  conduct  a  successful 
strike  is  much  less  than  ten  per  cent  of  all  workers,  and  that 
lockouts  are  comparatively  few  in  number,  we  can  perhaps 
understand  why  both  are  tolerated.  It  is  of  course  because 
they  do  not  really  affect  the  public  in  their  present  state  of 
development.  But  the  real  danger  is  not  in  their  present  form 
but  rather  in  their  possible  growth  and  the  danger  that  we 
are  creating  a  Frankenstein  monster  which  may  some  day  be- 
come so  large  as  to  swallow  up  not  only  the  very  people  who 
to-day  profit  from  it,  but  also  the  rest  of  us  as  well. 

So  much  for  the  dangers.  In  spite  of  abuses  we  still  have 
to  go  back  to  the  original  simile  and  to  admit  that  the  pub- 
lic has  a  right  to  determine  what  constitutes  trespass  and 
what  does  not.  No  one  owner  of  a  vacant  lot  can  hope  to 
keep  people  from  crossing  it  except  by  force  or  a  fence,  unless 
he  has  the  support  of  public  opinion.  No  man  can  long 
bar  people  of  a  certain  sex,  religion,  or  nationality  from  cross- 


—  188  — 

ing  or  entering  his  land.  In  fact  he  cannot  pick  and  choose 
on  any  ground  that  does  not  affect  all  alike  for  a  very  long 
time.  His  reasons  for  his  choice  must  be  rational  and  must 
have  justice  back  of  them.  The  fact  that  a  man  belongs  to 
a  certain  society  in  itself  cannot  long  be  held  up  as  a  bar  to 
employment.  If,  however,  that  society  is  not  law-abiding,  and 
if  the  man  is  bound  to  break  laws  by  virtue  of  his  membership 
in  it,  then  of  course  he  is  personally  and  individually  an  un- 
desirable man  to  have  at  large,  to  say  nothing  of  working  for 
some  one  who  is  affected  by  the  law-breaking  tendencies  of 
himself  and  his  associates.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  of 
organization  does  not  necessarily  imply  law  breaking.  That  it 
has  done  so  in  the  past  creates  a  suspicion  that  it  will  do  so  in 
the  future  and  many  organizations  will  have  to  overcome  this 
suspicion  before  they  can  expect  to  be  treated  with  respect 
and  confidence. 

The  right  of  engineers  to  belong  to  local  and  national  en- 
gineering societies,  the  right  of  physicians  to  have  their  or- 
ganizations, and  the  right  of  educators  to  similarly  organize 
themselves  has  never  been  questioned  simply  because  these 
men  have  an  unbroken  record  of  legality  in  their  procedure. 
Their  potential  power  for  harm  is  vastly  greater  than  that  of 
all  the  labor  organizations  in  the  country.  There  have  been, 
however,  organizations  of  employers  which  have  apparently 
stooped  to  practices  which  are  hardly  much  above  the  level 
of  those  whom  they  oppose.  Such  practices  include  black- 
listing men  and  refusals  to  allow  men  to  change  employment 
within  the  circle  of  the  organization,  and  by  indulging  in  these 
practices  the  organizations  harm  themselves  just  as  surely 
as  do  the  labor  organizations.  They  have  the  one  advantage, 
however,  of  the  benefit  of  legal  advice,  and  being  more  patient 
and  looking  farther  into  the  future,  they  are  not  so  apt  to 
run  counter  to  the  letter  of  the  law.  Nevertheless  they  arouse 
as  much  antagonism,  unrest,  and  suspicion  as  if  their  prac- 
tices were  not  within  the  law. 

The  solution  of  the  problem  seems  to  the  general  public 
very  simple.  Let  every  organization  be  fair,  open,  and  above 
board  and  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time  to  convince  every  one 
that  it  has  become  habitual  and  there  can  be  no  more  friction. 


—  189  — 

If  these  organizations  of  employers  and  employees  will  not 
act  honestly  and  above  board  because  their  own  best  interest 
demands  otherwise,  then  they  should  be  forced  to  do  so  in 
the  same  way  that  individuals  are  compelled  to  obey  the  law. 
Probably  both  sides  will  agree  to  such  a  proposition,  but  each 
side  will  probably  be  able  to  xe  only  the  sins  of  the  other. 

Supposing,  however,  that  both  sides  will  play  fair.  Is 
there  any  advantage  in  organization?  Yes,  very  decidedly  so, 
but  only  for  the  advantage  that  now  comes  to  associations  of 
professional  men,  which  is  chiefly  one  of  education  and  im- 
provement of  the  individual.  Any  association  will  prosper  as 
long  as  it  returns  good  educational  value  to  its  members  and 
as  long  as  membership  in  that  society  is  recognized  as  carry- 
ing with  it  respected  standing  in  the  profession.  If,  for  ex- 
ample, a  society  of  plumbers  lent  its  efforts  to  the  improved 
worth  of  its  members  through  educational  work  or  the  inter- 
change of  ideas  among  its  members,  and  if  membership  in 
that  society  was  recognized  by  the  world  at  large  as  a  guar- 
antee that  its  members  were  capable  workmen,  then  there  can 
be  little  doubt  but  that  such  a  society  is  very  much  worth 
while  from  every  point  of  view.  It  is  only  when  such  a  so- 
ciety becomes  drunk  with  power  and  overrides  the  laws  for 
which  its  own  members  are  partly  responsible  that  it  becomes 
an  outlaw  and  a  blot  on  society.  This  does  not  necessarily 
mean  that  the  right  of  any  individual  to  leave  the  employ  of 
any  firm  can  be  abridged,  nor  is  there  any  reason  why  any 
number  of  men  should  not  leave  at  the  same  time  and  for  the 
same  cause,  if  the  cause  is  just.  But  when  men  who  wish  to 
leave  attempt  to  intimidate  others  who  do  not  feel  the  same 
grievance  keenly  enough  to  join  the  movement  of  their  own 
accord,  then  the  society  does  become  obnoxious. 

Suppose,  however,  that  during  the  time  of  abundant  labor 
supply,  due  to  lack  of  business,  a  firm  sees  fit  to  reduce  wages 
and  impose  heavy  tasks  as  a  condition  of  permanent  employ- 
ment. What  redress  have  the  employees  except  to  strike? 
They  have  the  redress  that  is  always  open.  ^  Then  can  quietly 
and  peaceably  leave  their  jobs  and  take  other  and  better  ones. 
If,  however,  there  are  no  other  better  jobs,  then  it  clearly  shows 
that  the  employer  was  meeting  the  market  so  far  as  wages  and 


—  190  — 

tasks  were  concerned,  and  a  strike  under  such  conditions,  if 
successful,  would  simply  mean  that  coercion  made  the  em- 
ployer grant  increased  prices  which  he  may  charge  to  the  con- 
sumer as  a  result  of  the  advertising  which  the  strike  furnished. 
But  how  can  the  employees  or  the  public  tell  whether  the 
firm  is  making  money  enough  to  pay  the  increased  wage  out 
of  the  profits  or  whether  it  will  have  to  raise  prices,  and  if  the 
latter,  whether  the  public  can  justly  be  called  upon  to  pay  the 
increased  prices? 

The  only  reasonable  strike  for  more  money,  or  lessened 
production,  is  one  based  on  a  careful  and  complete  investiga- 
tion made  by  competent  people  with  all  the  facts  before  them. 
Such  a  strike,  however,  has  not  come  to  the  author's  attention. 
A  strike  under  any  other  condition  virtually  says  to  the  work- 
ing public  that  the  few  men  in  the  shop  intend  to  hold  up 
the  larger  number  who  use  that  product  and  take  away  from 
each  of  them  a  small  sum  of  money  so  as  to  put  a  larger  sum 
in  the  pockets  of  the  men  who  work  in  the  shop.  It  is  as 
though  a  thousand  workers  making  soap  were  to  demand  that 
the  product  be  sold  for  a  cent  a  cake  more  and  that  cent  be 
added  to  each  man's  wages.  It  is  not  the  employer  who  suf- 
fers; it  is  the  purchasing  public.  The  man  who  is  profiting 
from  a  strike  of  freight  handlers  may  be  paying  more  for 
shoes,  clothes,  food,  and  entertainment  because  he  is  being 
held  up  by  others  who  are  lining  their  pockets  at  his  expense, 
and  in  the  end  such  a  game  of  robbery  cannot  be  good  for 
any  one. 

The  most  vital  question  which  is  being  asked,  however, 
concerns  the  recognition  of  the  union.  Here  again  what  is 
said  and  what  is  meant  is  not  synonymous.  Recognition 
really  means  that  the  firm  realizes  and  admits  that  there  is  a 
union.  Every  firm  in  fact  does  admit  that  there  is  a  union 
among  its  employees,  if  such  is  the  case,  and  it  is  usually 
quite  well  informed  about  the  union.  What  the  firm  dis- 
likes to  do,  however,  is  to  recognize  the  right  of  the  union  to 
control  in  any  way  the  matters  which  they  themselves  have 
considered  in  the  past  their  own  prerogatives.  Among  these 
has  been  the  right  to  discharge  at  will.  These  rights  have 
been  previously  discussed  and  the  author  has  endeavored  to 


—  191  — 

show  that  they  do  not  rest  on  a  broad  or  sound  foundation. 
On  the  contrary,  the  very  arguments  against  this  indiscrimi- 
nate exercise  by  the  employers  are  equally  valid  against  its 
exercise  by  the  employees  or  their  representatives.  If  a  ques- 
tion can  be  raised  as  to  the  legitimacy  of  arbitrary  trespass 
rules  enforced  by  a  certain  class  of  people,  the  same  ques- 
tion can  also  be  raised  against  arbitrary  rules  enforced  by  any 
other  class. 

The  public  alone  through  its  legally  elected  representatives 
has  the  right  to  decide  what  people  shall  be  allowed  or  not  al- 
lowed to  work  in  an  industry.  This  is  shown  in  the  general 
acceptance  of  child  labor  laws,  and  laws  affecting  women  in 
industry.  But  more  rather  than  less  such  legislation  is  likely, 
for  when  an  organization  of  workmen  declares  that  none  but 
members  of  that  organization  shall  work  in  a  given  industry, 
or  when  an  organization  of  business  men  attempt  to  draw 
similar  lines,  they  equally  infringe  on  the  rights  of  the  peo- 
ple as  a  whole  to  regulate  its  internal  affairs.  The  great  ma- 
jority of  manufacturing  establishments,  stores,  and  farms  have 
a  very  much  larger  list  of  ultimate  consumers  than  of  em- 
ployees. For  the  latter  to  be  able  to  say  to  the  great  number, 
"You  will  have  to  pay  more  for  this  product  than  before,  be- 
cause we  want  more  than  our  share  of  wages/'  is  absurd,  es- 
pecially as  these  consumers  are  for  the  most  part  workmen 
themselves.  It  is  not  a  recognition  of  the  union  which  labor 
leaders  demand,  but  rather  that  the  great  body  of  workmen 
who  are  not  organized  shall  permit  themselves  to  be  exploited 
for  the  benefit  of  the  few. 

Finally  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  right  to  organize 
must  be  admitted  on  both  sides.  The .  abuse  of  the  power 
which  the  organization  brings  has  resulted  in  bad  feeling  which 
will  take  generations  to  overcome,  unless  some  radical  purify- 
ing power  comes  to  the  surface.  Wage  adjustment  by  strikes 
and  lockouts  is  unscientific,  and  operates  to  the  detriment  of 
labor  in  other  industries.  It  is  also  selfish  and  undemo- 
cratic because  it  is  for  the  chosen  few  who  prove  that  they 
realize  it  by  not  taking  in  the  many. 

May  we  not  conclude  that  industrial  peace  can  only  come 
when  labor  unions  are  compelled  to  become  responsible  or- 


—  192  — 

ganizations,  and  associations  of  employers  are  met  by  laws 
drawn  by  as  capable  men  as  those  whom  they  employ  to  find 
holes  in  them?  Suppose  that  a  labor  union  were  required 
to  deposit  government  bonds  to  the  extent  of  $100  per 
member  with  the  Department  of  Justice  as  a  bond  to 
keep  the  peace.  If  the  union  had  a  thousand  members 
there  would  then  be  an  income  of  about  $4000  which  no 
leader  or  organizer  would  jeopardize  without  thinking  many 
times,  because  it  would  assure  him  his  salary.  On  the  other 
hand  there  is  the  painful  fact  that  we  do  not  send  men  to  our 
legislatures  who  altogether  represent  us  intelligently  and 
forcefully.  The  larger  firms  outbid  the  public.  We  are  fre- 
quently confronted  with  the  spectacle  of  men  of  real  and  ac- 
cepted ability  quitting  public  life  literally  impoverished  and 
compelled  to  make  proper  provision  for  their  families. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
HOURS  OF  LABOR 

IT  seems  quite  generally  agreed  that  eight  hours  of  sleep 
per  day  are  necessary  for  the  proper  recuperation,  physical 
and  mental,  of  the  average  man.  Of  course  we  are  not  all 
alike ;  some  men  can  work  long  hours  and  there  are  also  those 
who  find  it  necessary  to  have  long  periods  of  rest.  In  gen- 
eral, however,  it  may  be  said  that  the  man  who  works  so  hard 
or  so  long  that  he  cannot  recuperate  from  it  in  eight  hours 
is  taking  chances  on  shortening  his  natural  life.  This,  how- 
ever, is  only  a  rough  average ;  it  varies  with  every  individual, 
with  the  temperature  and  with  the  humidity,  but  more  than 
anything  else  with  his  state  of  mind.  Possibly  the  latter  has 
more  to  do  with  determining  hours  of  labor  than  any  other 
single  factor.  There  is  also  need  of  time  to  eat  and  for  diges- 
tion of  the  food.  People  likewise  need  entertainment  and  re- 
laxation. 

All  these  needs  vary  in  different  parts  of  the  world. 
We  who  live  in  the  northern  parts,  who  find  zest  in  fighting 
our  way  against  storms  and  enjoy  the  contrast  of  snow  and  ice 
with  the  warmth  of  the  fireside,  do  not  always  stop  to  think 
that  there  are  other  parts  where  it  is  impossible  for  men  to 
work  as  continuously  as  we  do.  When  we  travel  we  are  apt 
to  call  other  people  lazy,  when  they  are  merely  trying  to  live 
and  to  do  all  the  work  they  can.  We  forget  that  we  live  by 
the  lifetime,  and  that  it  is  best  for  all  to  so  live  and  work  as 
to  accomplish  the  most  work  in  that  lifetime.  But  even  in 
this  latitude  there  is  a  great  variation  in  the  effects  of  dif- 
ferent jobs  on  the  same  man,  depending  of  course  on  the  ex- 
ertion which  they  put  forth.  There  are  the  jobs  which  con- 
sist for  the  most  part  in  being  present  and  ready  to  do  some- 

193 


—  194  — 

thing  which  seldom  has  to  be  done.  We  are  replacing  these 
jobs,  as  rapidly  as  possible,  with  automatic  machinery. 

One  of  the  earliest  of  these  replacements  was  due  to  the 
invention  of  the  valve  gear  for  the  steam  engine  which  was 
used  in  place  of  a  small  boy  who  formerly  opened  and  closed 
the  valves.  This  not  only  liberated  the  boy  from  a  monoto- 
nous job  but  it  started  the  way  toward  high-speed  engines. 
The  effect  of  withdrawing  these  automatic  jobs  from  the  work 
of  men  is,  therefore,  very  likely  to  add  to  our  opportunities  for 
mechanical  advancement.  Jobs  which  consist  in  being  pres- 
ent are  just  suited  to  the  temperament  which  likes  to  go  fish- 
ing, but  hopes  the  fish  will  not  bite  too  often.  There  are  not 
a  great  number  of  men  who  want  these  jobs,  but  those  who  are 
available  are  usually  quite  willing  to  work  long  hours.  If 
they  try  to  shorten  their  hours  it  is  for  the  sake  of  lengthen- 
ing the  hours  for  which  they  receive  overtime  pay.  The  only 
limit  on  these  jobs  is  the  social  limit.  These  men  have  the 
same  social  claims  made  on  them  that  other  men  do,  and 
especially  so  if  they  are  married.  If  they  work  long  hours  they 
keep  their  families  away  from  many  social  diversions  which 
the  family  would  otherwise  enjoy.  Sometimes  their  families 
will  enjoy  these  diversions  without  them  and  in  such  cases 
there  is  frequently  trouble.  It  is  sometimes  possible  for  men 
to  be  employed  alternate  weeks  on  day  and  night  shifts  and 
in  such  cases  the  jobs  should  be  divided  into  a  short-day  week 
and  a  long-night  week. 

Then,  too,  some  of  these  jobs  consist  in  "watching  the 
wheels  go  around"  and  being  ready  to  make  needed  repairs 
and  adjustments,  put  in  new  stock  and  otherwise  look  after 
a  machine  or  group  of  machines.  The  hours  of  such  work 
are  also  limited  to  those  prescribed  by  the  custom  in  that  in- 
dustry, unless  the  work  is  such  that  it  demands  constant  vigi- 
lance and  rapid  work  in  making  adjustments  to  get  the  ma- 
chinery going  again  after  a  stoppage.  A  battery  of  auto- 
matic screw  machines  on  close  jobs  may  require  such  con- 
stant attention,  and  there  may  be  so  many  of  them,  that  an 
eight-hour  day  is  too  long.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  amount 
of  work  to  be  done  does  not  justify  the  shop  having  many 
automatic  machines  and  the  work  is  not  so  close,  or  if  the 


—  195  — 

machines  are  in  good  repair  so  that  adjustments  are  not  often 
needed,  then  the  operator  may  be  able  to  work  long  hours 
without  undue  inconvenience.  Under  "ordinary  conditions  an 
offer  of  time  and  a  half  for  overtime  will  bring  almost  any 
man  away  from  his  social  ties  for  as  many  hours  as  the  su- 
perintendent wants.  The  most  serious  danger  is  to  the  fam- 
ily where  the  eternal  triangle  is  so  easily  brought  about  if  a 
young  woman  finds  herself  a  sort  of  daily  widow. 

Then  there  are  the  real  working  jobs  where  all  day  long 
men  must  either  spend  their  muscular  energy  or  must  con- 
tinually keep  their  minds  on  problems.  These  include  the 
two  extremes,  the  purely  manual  labor  and  the  highly  skilled 
labor  of  the  mechanic,  the  engineer,  and  the  office  man.  These 
men  nominally  work  long  hours,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
majority  of  them  could  do  all  that  is  necessary  in  a  very  much 
shorter  time,  if  it  were  not  for  interruptions  which  they  can- 
not control.  A  general  manager,  for  example,  may  say  that 
he  works  regular  shop  hours,  thereby  meaning  that  he  is 
present  that  much  of  the  time.  His  life,  however,  is  usually 
largely  spent  in  waiting  for  some  one  else,  in  attendance  on 
meetings  (half  the  time  of  which  is  taken  up  listening  to 
some  one  who  has  nothing  to  say)  and  in  general  waiting  for 
people  to  get  through  talking  about  things  which  he  grasped 
as  soon  as  they  began  to  discuss  them.  The  men  down  the 
line  find  themselves  similarly  situated,  except  that  their  idle- 
ness is  even  more  the  result  of  waiting  for  those  higher  up. 

Then  there  is  the  inevitable  dawdling  that  comes  with 
brain  weariness  in  the  latter  part  of  the  day,  followed  by  a 
brief  spurt  just  before  quitting  time  when  a  man's  conscience 
spurs  him  on  to  make  a  brave  finish.  Most  men  do  not  real- 
ize that  they  give  way  to  brain  fag,  but  they  see  others  doing 
it  and  wonder  why.  In  the  shop,  the  more  highly  skilled  men 
are  almost  always  able  to  direct  work  rather  than  do  it,  the 
exceptions  coming  from  those  who  do  the  extremely  fine  work 
of  scraping  or  lapping  the  final  fit,  whose  efforts  represent 
small  fractions  of  a  thousandth  of  an  inch.  The  men  who 
run  machines  come  more  nearly  under  the  class  of  men  who 
are  paid  for  being  present,  except  that  they,  like  professional 
men,  are  paid  for  knowing  how. 


—  196  — 

Salesmen  are  another  noteworthy  instance  of  men  putting 
in  long  hours  and  working  a  short  time.  A  salesman  begins 
work  when  he  first  gets  on  a  train  as  he  starts  on  a  trip  and 
his  work  does  not  stop  until  he  gets  home,  at  least  that  is  his 
version  of  it.  Yet  all  salesmen  sit  around  in  hotel  lobbies 
and  in  other  men's  offices  hour  after  hour  waiting  for  the 
proper  time  to  present  their  cards.  It  pays  to  wait.  This 
waiting  is  not  done  to  pass  away  the  time,  for  it  is  the  hard- 
est thing  that  a  live  man  does.  It  is  done  because  the  time 
to  see  a  prospect  is  when  they  are  "biting."  There  is  no  use 
fishing  in  a  trout  stream  in  an  open  meadow  in  the  heat  of  the 
sun,  and  there  is  no  more  use  trying  to  sell  rubber  boots  in 
July  to  a  perspiring  purchasing  agent.  He  may  look  at 
samples  in  a  perfunctory  way,  because  that  is  his  duty,  but 
if  there  is  any  excuse  for  not  buying  he  has  it  ready  at  hand. 

From  a  personal  point  of  view  there  is  no  doubt  but  that 
it  would  be  better  for  all  these  men  to  do  their  work  as 
quickly  as  possible  and  then  go  home,  or  to  the  golf  links,  or 
wherever  else  they  preferred.  Possibly  they  could  do  this  if 
every  one  tried  to  help  the  other  fellow  instead  of  lying  back 
and  keeping  him  waiting.  The  old  notion  that  men  are  im- 
pressed by  the  importance  of  the  man  who  keeps  them  waiting, 
or  who  puts  them  off  on  some  understrapper,  is  all  exploded. 
The  man  who  is  put  off  in  this  way  nowadays  knows  that 
the  other  fellow  is  either  bluffing  or  that  his  work  is  very  badly 
organized. 

There  is,  however,  besides  this  waste  of  others'  time,  the 
waste  that  comes  about  through  lack  of  appointments,  broken 
appointments,  and  appointments  going  over  their  allotted 
time.  It  is  our  way  in  this  great  free  land  to  assume  that  our 
friends,  business  and  otherwise,  have  nothing  better  or  more 
necessary  to  do  than  to  listen  to  our  funny  stories,  and  that 
they  should  hold  themselves  in  readiness  to  do  so  without 
warning.  Consequently  we  go  around  calling  without  mak- 
ing appointments.  In  some  cases  there  are  two  valid  reasons 
for  this,  one  that  we  are  afraid  that  if  we  telephoned  for 
an  appointment  we  would  be  obliged  to  tell  why  we  wanted 
it,  and  not  having  a  very  good  excuse,  we  would  not  get  it; 
rule  number  one  of  the  salesman  being,  "Get  in ;  no  matter 


—  197  — 

how,  get  in."  The  other  reason  is  that  we  think  the  man  a 
snob  if  he  does  not  say,  when  we  ask  for  an  appointment,  "Oh, 
come  in  any  time.  I  am  always  here  to  my  friends,"  and 
then  we  expect  to  be  let  in  through  the  side  door  or  go  in 
ahead  of  the  line. 

Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  it  is  only  right  to  make  appoint- 
ments, keep  them  and  then  get  up  and  go  without  running 
over  our  time.  The  latter  is  the  most  difficult  to  do,  because 
our  errand  is  so  important,  and  we  do  not  want  to  stop  talking 
long  enough  to  let  the  other  man  express  an  opinion  until  we 
have  exhausted  our  logic.  We  are  also  very  much  inclined  to 
take  the  short  cut  of  the  telephone  route.  We  know  that 
Jones  is  a  busy  man,  we  suspect  his  lobby  is  full  of  men  wait- 
ing their  turn,  so  we  pick  up  the  telephone,  knowing  that  he 
cannot  help  but  respond  to  our  call  or  that  his  secretary  will 
not  be  sure  enough  to  stop  it.  So  we  may  use  up  half  of  the 
time  allotted  to  some  other  man's  interview  without  accom- 
plishing nearly  so  much  as  we  might  if  we  could  actually  have 
seen  him. 

Let  us  next  consider  the  man  in  the  shop,  the  high-grade 
man  who  knows  how,  and  who  waits  patiently  hour  after  hour 
for  the  machine  to  finish  the  work  so  that  he  can  set  the  tools 
for  another  operation.  To  be  sure,  if  the  shop  is  large  enough 
and  there  are  enough  tools  available,  he  may  set  up  the  work 
and  make  the  adjustments  and  then  leave  the  machine  for 
some  helper  or  assistant  to  operate,  but  it  is  not  every  shop 
that  can  introduce  such  refinements  although  they  must  of 
necessity  have  such  machines.  Too  often  a  man  of  this  abil- 
ity feels  it  beneath  him  to  operate  any  other  machine  in  con- 
junction with  his  specialty,  and  so  he  will  not  take  on  work 
of  a  different  character.  Piece-work  rates,  however,  will  often 
make  a  great  difference  in  his  pride,  and  he  may  do  for  money 
what  he  would  not  do  for  the  sake  of  making  the  time  pass 
more  quickly.  However,  if  he  will  not  do  other  work  he  puts 
himself  in  a  class  with  those  who  are  paid  for  being  present 
only  and  he  might  as  well  work  long  hours. 

In  all  kinds  of  industry  there  are  a  great  number  of  men 
whose  work  consists  in  doing  tasks  which  the  machine  has  not 
been  made  to  do.  One  man  may  find  his  work  solely  in  tak- 


—  198  — 

ing  the  product  of  one  machine  and  feeding  it  into  another. 
There  may  be  an  attachment  for  doing  this  work  which  the 
shop  does  not  possess.  It  may  be  too  expensive,  it  may  not 
be  adaptable  to  different  sizes  of  work,  or  it  may  require  too 
much  adjustment  for  varying  sizes.  In  fact,  there  may  be  a 
dozen  reasons  why  this  man  should  perform  a  function  that 
can  be  performed  by  a  machine.  If  the  work  is  heavy  he 
needs  moderate  hours,  for  no  one  can  continue  active  physical 
labor  over  an  eight-hour  day,  nor  indeed  over  a  much  shorter 
one.  If  the  work  is  light  he  may  even  stay  for  a  fourteen- 
hour  day  without  injury  to  himself. 

On  the  other  hand,  another  machine  tender  whose  work 
consists  in  feeding  material  to  a  machine,  but  who  has  to  keep 
his  mind  constantly  on  the  job,  ought  not,  for  the  good  of 
the  product  or  his  own  good,  be  allowed  to  work  any  over- 
time, and  an  eight-hour  day  may  be  too  long  for  most  effi- 
cient work.  In  this  connection  consider  for  a  moment  the 
matter  of  cloth  inspection.  For  such  work  a  man  will  sit 
hour  after  hour  and  pull  down  yard  after  yard  and  bolt  after 
bolt  of  goods,  examining  it  for  knots  and  flaws  of  every  kind, 
and  sometimes  the  goods  will  be  passed  along  for  several 
minutes  while  the  inspector  is  daydreaming  and  so  of  course 
he  has  not  had  the  slightest  idea  what  passed  by  him. 

All  these  are  but  illustrations  of  the  differences  in  the  time 
which  men  may  work  on  given  jobs  and  it  makes  us  rather 
wonder  if  there  is  anything  to  guide  us  in  setting  a  working 
day  except  the  social  side.  If  it  is  necessary  in  a  shop  that 
there  should  be  a  uniform  working  day  for  every  one,  the 
length  of  the  day  can  hardly  be  based  on  working  necessity 
or  on  the  tiring  quality  of  the  work,  for  in  the  latter  case  the 
day  could  only  be  as  long  as  that  required  to  tire  out  the  hard- 
est worked  man.  There  is,  however,  no  insurmountable  ob- 
stacle in  having  different  hours  of  work  on  different  jobs  in 
the  same  factory.  There  may  be  trouble  if  there  are  only 
two  sets  of  hours,  but  with  several  different  sets  there  is  not 
much  chance  to  raise  objections,  and  especially  so  if  the  wages 
are  based  on  piece  rates  or  a  straight  hourly  basis,  and  if  the 
employment  department  does  not  seem  too  antagonistic  to 
transfers.  This  is  always  supposing  that  none  of  the  day- 


—  199  — 

light  hours  begin  before  transportation  is  available,  and  that 
they  do  not  end  later  than,  say,  six  o'clock,  so  that  men  can 
discharge  their  social  obligations.  Night  work  can,  of  course, 
be  carried  on  over' longer  hours,  but  as  a  general  rule  night 
work  is  not  wise  except  as  an  emergency  job  to  allow  a  larger 
number  to  work  continuously  by  day,  and  where  the  worker 
is  paid  for  being  present  but  not  for  working  a  great  deal. 

Experience  during  the  war  indicates  that,  given  sufficient 
money,  men  in  general  will  work  just  as  long  as  they  can  with- 
out going  to  sleep  on  the  job.  However,  after  the  man  has 
reached  his  physical  limit  he  has  to  lay  off  for  enough  time  to 
make  up  for  the  extra  time  that  he  gained.  Generally  speak- 
ing, and  taking  the  money  reward  into  account,  length  of  hours 
should  be  determined  by  experiment  and  experience  rather 
than  by  the  fashion  of  the  day.  The  eight-hour  day  slogan 
is  just  as  unscientific  as  a  ten-hour  or  a  twelve-hour  or  any 
other  specified  hour.  It  is  only  a  watchword  and  it  means 
nothing  to  any  one  worker.  It  is  a  rallying  cry,  much  like 
a  college  yell. 

The  governing  principle  should  be  that  each  shift  should 
be  just  as  short  as  it  can  be,  and  yet  allow  every  man  who  is 
employed  on  a  given  kind  of  work  to  do  all  the  work  that 
is  good  for  him  to  do,  provided  that  the  hours  come  at  such 
a  time  that  he  can  take  his  part  in  the  world  as  a  social  being 
a-nd  be  not  merely  a  wage  earner.  The  hours  should  be  short, 
from  the  employer's  point  of  view,  because  there  is  so  much 
overhead  charge  which  stops  when  the  wheels  stop  revolving. 
His  overhead  charges  are  also  less  the  shorter  the  time,  but 
they  go  on  just  the  same  when  the  help  are  dawdling  through 
the  last  hour  or  two  of  the  day  after  they  are  already  tired. 
Then  too  there  should  be  a  very  careful  watch  over  those 
who  work  at  machines  -which  require  a  constant  speed  of 
work  for  the  operator.  Machines  which  require  the  material 
to  be  fed  in  at  regular  intervals,  and  which  would  require 
the  work  to  be  put  through  them  again  if  a  feeding  time  were 
skipped,  are  dangerous  jobs,  because  men  who  are  sick  and 
who  should  be  at  home  will  nevertheless  be  "on  the  job" 
for  the  sake  of  the  money  which  it  brings,  and  they  will  surely 
suffer  unless  they  are  closely  watched. 


—  200  — 

The  best  interest^  of  the  worker  are  conserved  when  he 
earns  the  most  money  that  he  can  without  getting  so  tired 
that  he  does  not  entirely  recuperate  during  the  night.  There 
must  be  considered,  however,  his  method  of  spending  the 
evening.  It  may  be  that  he  goes  home  and  rests,  he  may 
go  out  and  dance  until  morning,  he  may  work  in  his  garden 
until  he  is  utterly  tired  out,  or  he  may  go  to  some  amusement 
place  where  he  undoubtably  rests  because  it  takes  his  mind 
from  himself.  All  these  of  course  have  an  effect  on  the  work 
which  he  does  the  next  day.  He  may  profit  or  he  may  lose 
by  it,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it  affects  his  employer  at  least 
twice  as  acutely  as  it  does  him.  Yet  his  employer  has  no 
right  to  utter  a  word  of  protest,  because  it  is  out  of  working 
hours,  and  it  is  not  usually  possible  to  prove  that  the  effects 
of  the  night  before  cause  the  poor  work  or  the  small  amount 
of  work  which  he  did.  If  constant  records  of  men's  work  are 
kept,  and '  especially  if  they  are  kept  in  graphical  form,  it  is 
apparent  that,  with  many  of  them,  there  are  considerable 
variations  from  day  to  day. 

Some  of  these  variations  are  traceable  to  the  weather,  or 
to  some  other  uncontrollable  influence,  but  there  will  be  those 
which  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  the  man  himself.  He 
should  be  given  an  opportunity  to  so  account  for  them,  which 
will  at  least  give  him  a  chance  to  realize  that  the  firm'  is 
watching  him  and  knows  how  he  is  getting  along.  If  it 
proves  that  his  slump  was  due  to  sickness  he  should  see  the 
company  doctor  at  once,  while  if  it  is  due  to  late  hours  or 
dissipation  he  should  realize  that  the  company  suffers  more 
than  he  does,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the  overhead  charges 
which  go  on  regardless  of  his  absence  are  usually  at  least 
one  hundred  per  cent  and  often  more.  It  is  unfortunate 
that  there  are  so  few  jobs  where  it  is  possible  to  keep  daily 
count  of  each  man's  production.  Most  of  the  jobs  where  this 
can  be  done  are  those  where  the  speed  of  production  is  deter- 
mined by  the  faithfulness  with  which  men  feed  material  to 
machines.  In  a  general  machine  shop,  for  example,  the  only 
way  that  any  one  knows  whether  a  man  did  a  full  day's  work 
is  by  guess,  or,  if  one  likes  it  better,  by  judgment.  If  he 
works  on  piece  work,  no  one  knows  which  are  the  fat  jobs 


—  201  — 

and  which  are  the  lean  jobs  for  that  particular  man,  so 
that  comparisons  based  on  piece-work  earnings  are  not  entirely 
reliable.  It  would  be  a  wonderful  advance  if  each  man's  real 
work  were  metered  in  some  way  so  that  every  one  could  get 
what  he  earned  and  so  that  his  condition  at  the  close  of  each 
day's  work  could  be  compared  with  his  earnings. 

Another  matter  which  should  be  considered  and  which  is 
rather  closely  related  to  the  length  of  the  working  day  is  the 
length  of  the  noon  hour.  This  is  almost  universally  an  hour, 
the  exceptions  being  in  the  direction  of  shortening  it.  In 
many  cases  it  is  cut  down  to  a  half  hour,  this  being  so  in 
almost  all  places  where  every  one  brings  a  lunch  and  treats 
it  as  a  lunch.  Usually  such  a  condition  is  found  in  the  office 
rather  than  the  shop,  for  the  office  force  is  more  inclined  to 
eat  lunch  in  the  middle  of  the  day  and  dinner  at  night.  The 
only  apparent  excuse  for  the  shortened  lunch  hour  is  that  a 
full  hour  is  not  enough  for  the  digestion  of  a  substantial  meal, 
and  since  it  is  not  enough  we  might  just  as  well  make  it  still 
less.  There  is,  however,  some  gain  in  sitting  around  after  a 
heavy  dinner  in  the  middle  of  the  day.  Smoking  is  probably 
good  only  as  it  can  be  done  while  relaxing  and  because  it 
tends  to  relaxation.  Men  who  do  hard  muscular  work  can- 
not carry  through  even  an  eight-hour  day  without  stocking 
up  with  heat-producing  foods,  even  though  it  be  midsummer. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  office  force  do  not  really  need  a  heavy 
midday  meal.  In  fact,  they  would  be  better  off  with  a  bowl 
of  crackers  and  milk  and  a  plate  of  ice  cream. 

It  has  been  most  interesting  to  see  how  the  introduction 
of  a  second  and  in  some  cases  a  third  eight-hour  shift  affected 
the  lunch  hours.  In  order  to  get  in  three  eight-hour  shifts 
it  was  necessary  to  omit  more  than  a  momentary  recess  for 
dinner.  This  was  usually  limited  to  fifteen  minutes,  though 
in  some  cases  it  went  up  to  twenty.  The  two  eight-hour  shifts 
were  many  times  arranged  from  seven  a.  m.  to  three-thirty 
p.  m.  with  a  half  hour  for  lunch,  and  the  second  shift  from 
three-thirty  p.  m.  to  midnight,  if  the  cars  ran  as  late  as  that  to 
take  the  men  to  their  homes.  In  other  words,  the  two  shifts 
cut  the  lunch  down  to  thirty  minutes  and  the  three  shifts  cut 
that  in  halves.  No  very  evident  harm  seemed  to  come  from 


—  202  — 

these  abbreviated  lunch  hours.  The  fifteen-minute  periods 
did  not  allow  many  men  to  get  to  the  company  cafeterias, 
but  usually  meant  that  they  must  eat  as  they  worked,  in  the 
dirt  and  at  or  near  their  machines.  The  three-shift  plan, 
however,  seemed  only  to  be  effective  with  machine  operatives 
whose  principal  duty  was  being  present.  They  might  in 
many  cases  quite  as  well  have  worked  through  the  fifteen- 
minute  periods,  eating  as  their  machines  were  still  running. 
Manual  workers,  such  as  blacksmiths,  of  course  did  come  in 
on  these  shifts  in  some  places  but  not  in  a  great  many.  They 
seemed  to  run  to  the  two-shift  plan  with  sometimes  a  longer 
shift  and  an  easier  gait  at  night,  thus  drawing  more  money 
but  not  accomplishing  more  work. 

There  is  something,  however,  that  does  not  seem  just 
natural  about  working  at  night.  It  seems  to  disturb  all  our 
ideas  of  what  is  right  and  natural,  and  all  our  faculties  cry 
out  against  it.  The  men  who  best  succeed  in  night  work, 
that  is,  those  who  come  nearest  to  doing  the  same  amount 
and  quality  of  work  at  night  as  in  the  daytime,  are  the  men 
of  lowest  mentality.  They  do  little  in  the  daytime  and  not 
much  more  at  night.  As  these  men  become  more  capable, 
as  they  learn  to  earn  money  and  to  spend  it,  they  seem  to 
gain  only  on  the  day  shift;  at  night  they  are  just  as  stupid 
as  ever.  This  may  of  course  be  partly  because  they  are  clever 
and  they  find  that  their  appearance  of  stupidity  obtains  for 
them  certain  privileges  which  they  otherwise  could  not  get. 

As  a  patriotic  measure  night  work  was  undoubtedly  neces- 
sary and  as  an  expedient  to  gain  production  and  hold  cus- 
tomers who  might  otherwise  be  lost  it  may  be  profitable,  but 
as  an  economical  measure  for  making  profits  it  is  only  in 
comparatively  few  cases  that  it  can  be  said  to  pay  with 
any  type  of  labor  except  the  watchers  and  waiters.  Of  course, 
there  are  lines  of  production  in  which  constant  operation 
twenty-four  hours  a  day  and  seven  days  in  the  week  is  neces- 
sary, but  they  for  the  most  part  deal  with  operations  involving 
heat,  like  blast  furnaces,  dry  kilns,  pottery  kilns,  etc.,  and 
they  do  not  require  the  employment  of  a  large  proportion  of 
highly-skilled  labor.  Such  few  men  as  are  needed  of  the 
latter  type  can  command  extremely  high  wages  and  they  are 


—  203  — 

inclined  to  be  the  type  that  gets  rid  of  its  money  most  expe- 
ditiously.  Occasionally  one  saves  his  money  and  gets  into 
some  other  part  of  the  work,  but  for  the  most  part  they  do 
not  develop  into  a  type  that  would  encourage  any  one  inter- 
ested in  the  progress  of  humanity  to  increase  the  amount  of 
such  work  that  is  being  done. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
THE  COMMISSARY  DEPARTMENT 

EVEN  when  a  shop  or  store  is  located  in  the  business  center 
of  a  large  city  the  feeding  of  its  employees  is  likely  to  be 
a  matter  of  moment  and  when  it  is  located  miles  from  regular 
restaurants  the  problem  becomes  one  of  desperation.  In  any 
case  a  company  commissary  has  to  compete  with  home 
cooking  which  is  not  always  of  a  kind  to  be  envied.  The 
older  business  men  hark  back  to  their  boyhood  days  and 
refer  to  the  dinner  pail  as  the  unfailing  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem. The  least  actual  outlay  of  money  is  necessary  for  the 
dinner-pail  system.  Mother  puts  up  a  dinner  for  husband, 
sons,  and  daughters,  and  charges  no  more  for  her  labor  than 
as  if  she  had  prepared  them  a  midday  meal  at  home.  In  fact, 
mother  is  often  glad  to  do  it  because  she  can  snatch  a  bite  at 
noon  and  get  a  good  seat  at  the  movies  while  her  neighbors 
have  to  preside  over  a  hot  and  heavy  dinner  at  home.  Her 
family,  however,  often  feel  the  lack  of  substance  in  the  meal 
they  carry,  and  as  soon  as  possible  they  relieve  mother  still 
more  by  buying  a  lunch  at  the  nearest,  cheapest,  and  quickest 
lunch  place.  In  late  spring  and  early  fall  the  dinner  pail 
does  very  nicely  when  supplemented  by  a  thermos  bottle, 
but  in  summer  ice  cream  is  needed  and  in  the  winter  the  ab- 
sence of  hot  foods  is  keenly  felt.  This  want  is  filled  by  the 
cheap  lunch  place  when  in  summer  it  provides  frozen  vege- 
table lard  which  passes  as  ice  cream,  and  in  winter  the  hot 
gravy  stews  with  occasional  gristly  bits  of  questionable  meat. 
Neither  dinner  pail  nor  quick  lunch,  however,  sends  em- 
ployees back  to  work  in  the  afternoon  with  anything  like  the 
spirit  with  which  they  came  in  the  morning.  In  each  case 
too  much  of  one  kind  of  food  is  usually  eaten.  In  both  sum- 

204 


—  205  — 

mer  and  winter  hot  stews  are  proving  the  most  popular  and 
most  profitable  foods  furnished.  The  old  New  England  idea 
of  three  hearty  meals  a  day  with  pie  and  baked  beans  holding 
the  position  of  least  turnover  on  the  bill  of  fare  seems  to 
dominate  the  menu  of  more  than  a  majority  of  working  peo- 
ple. The  one  great  exception  is  in  the  case  of  girls  working 
in  offices  whose  meals,  if  carried,  consist  of  dainty  sand- 
wiches composed  of  thin  slices  of  bread  lined  with  a  single 
leaf  of  lettuce  with  a  dab  of  mustard  on  it.  With  this 
is  a  bit  of  cake.  No  wonder  rest  rooms  are  so  often  needed. 
Just  so  long  as  the  one-hour  noon  time  prevails,  we  shall  have 
this  problem  of  trying  to  get  people  to  so  eat  that  they  will 
be  fit  to  work  during  the  afternoon.  Most  business  men  find 
it  pays  to  make  their  midday  meal  a  very  light  lunch  and 
then  go  home  to  a  substantial  evening  meal.  Workmen, 
however,  find  it  difficult  to  do  this  because  the  light  lunch 
does  not  last  them  through  the  five-hour  afternoon  and  be- 
cause wife  objects  to  cooking  a  heavy  meal  in  the  afternoon. 
That  is  the  time  to  be  dressed  up  and  meet  her  friends. 

The  solution  of  the  entire  problem  would  seem  to  involve 
a  complete  housing  and  feeding  plan  which  would  provide  a 
lunch  at  midday  heavy  enough  to  have  the  needed  lasting 
qualities  and  light  enough  to  allow  of  comfortable  working 
by  one  o'clock ;  and  also  provide  a  community  kitchen  which 
would  send  out  a  complete  hot  meal  at  night  to  households 
where  the  wife  did  not  wish  to  allow  the  business  of  the 
family  to  interfere  with  her  pleasure.  So  far  as  the  author 
knows,  however,  no  attempt  has  ever  been  made  to  do  all 
of  this.  Some  places  provide  a  dietician  who  gets  up  bal- 
anced meals,  which  means  that  so  far  as  they  can  estimate 
average  needs  the  muscle  and  brain  foods  are  served  with 
enough  heat  producers  to  suit  the  season.  Practically  it  is 
very  difficult  for  the  ordinary  restaurant  goer  to  tell  whether 
he  is  in  a  place  which  affords  a  dietician  or  one  which  does 
not,  for  after  all  a  restaurant  which  does  not  offer  what  the 
patron  wishes  to  buy  and  at  the  price  they  wish  to  pay  soon 
goes  out  of  business. 

In  order  to  pay,  a  company  restaurant  must  have  a  fairly 
well-distributed  load;  it  must  buy  cheaply  and  it  must  not 


—  206  — 

have  any  wasted  wages.  It  must  also  sell  at  a  fair  price  to 
compete  with  the  dinner  pail.  The  general  manager  should 
be  convinced  that  every  dinner  pail  driven  out  of  the  place 
is  a  gain.  If  it  cannot  be  driven  out  except  by  housing  he 
should  remember  that  it  costs  about  $4000  or  $5000  to  provide 
a  house  for  each  family  and  while  he  may  eventually  obtain 
a  good  return  on  his  money,  it  is  slow  in  coming  and  mean- 
while he  ties  up  much  capital. 

It  will  seldom  fail  to  show  that  it  pays  to  serve  a  good 
lunch  and  forget  the  cost.  Our  worst  enemies,  when  we  are 
trying  to  be  fair  to  our  help,  are  our  cost  departments  because 
they  fail  to  distinguish  between  visible  and  invisible  assets. 
They  can  see  checks  from  customers  only  at  face  value.  They 
think  the  payroll  represents  all  that  the  workmen  are  entitled 
to  or  want.  "Put  it  all  in  their  pay  envelope"  is  a  favorite 
saying  which  means  nothing  because  "all"  cannot  be  put  there. 
A  dollar  in  a  man's  pay  envelope  is  not  worth  as  much  as  an 
actual  fifty  cent  food  value  offered  at  lunch  time.  If  we  could 
get  cost  accountants  to  put  the  apparent  financial  loss  of 
feeding  employees  into  the  overhead  charges  and  let  it  be 
absorbed  then  we  would  not  be  troubled  so  much  over  the 
loss.  Years  ago  every  machinist  was  expected  to  furnish  all 
his  small  tools.  If  we  should  now  be  presented  with  a  monthly 
account  of  the  cost  of  operating  all  tool  rooms  we  would  be 
staggered,  but  we  would  not  at  all  be  likely  to  go  back  to  the 
old  way  even  though  it  would  be  analogous  to  the  dinner- 
pail  method  of  handling  the  food  question. 

Another  fact  that  should  be  kept  in  mind  when  the  burden 
of  feeding  employees  is  considered  is  that  the  very  location  of 
a  plant  which  makes  it  necessary  to  provide  meals  may  be 
an  immense  profit  in  itself,  so  much  so  as  to  make  the  burden 
insignificant.  All  references  so  far  as  to  expense  are  based 
on  the  assumption  that  this  balance  will  appear  on  the  wrong 
side  of  the  ledger.  There  are  only  two  ways  in  which  it 
seems  possible  to  avoid  this.  The  first  is  to  fail  to  charge  all 
the  expense  which  the  commissary  department  incurs  to  that 
department,  the  other  is  to  fail  to  give  as  good  food  values 
for  a  dollar  as  are  returned  in  public  eating  houses  which 
employees  would  naturally  patronize  if  they  could. 


—  207  — 

Failure  to  keep  accounts  correctly  is  not  so  very  important 
to  the  business  as  a  whole.  It  simply  means  that  some  ex- 
penses, usually  salaries,  heat,  light,  rent,  and  other  similar 
items  are  charged  to  other  accounts.  The  profit  shown,  if 
these  are  not  charged  to  the  commissary  department,  is  imag- 
inary but  useful,  because  it  helps  keep  the  management  in 
ignorance  of  matters  which  would  cause  them  additional  and 
useless  worry  if  they  knew  about  them.  The  other  way  in 
which  the  account  is  made  to  look  right  is  by  the  use  of 
food  substitutes  and  by  cutting  down  the  size  of  orders.  Food 
substitutes  are  not  necessarily  harmful,  for  often  it  is  possible 
to  present  a  most  appetizing  dish  for  little  money  which  for 
the  time  is  very  satisfying,  but  does  not  have  "staying" 
qualities.  Also  certain  dishes  like  baked  beans  are  very  satis- 
fying and  they  contain  considerable  nutriment  but  they  are 
not  especially  appetizing.  A  continuous  diet  of  baked  beans 
becomes  almost  nauseating  and  so  cannot  be  maintained,  while 
a  diet  of  French  cooking,  all  taste  and  no  substance,  is  attrac- 
tive but  leads  to  starvation.  It  is  this  very  fact  which  leads 
people  who  habitually  dine  at  restaurants  to  change  so  fre- 
quently. They  crave  the  appetizing  features  and  yet  they 
must  also  have  the  food  value.  The  very  rare  restaurants 
which  give  both  are  crowded  to  capacity,  and  if  it  were  not 
for  the  danger  of  still  further  overcrowding  them,  it  would 
be  possible  to  name  one  or  two  restaurants  in  every  city  of 
over  a  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  whose  proprietors  are 
growing  wealthy  and  whose  patrons  stick  to  them  year  in 
and  year  out.  The  only  difference  between  them  .and  the 
failure  on  each  side  of  them  lies  in  the  fact  that  their 
food  both  tastes  good  and  is  good. 

If  it  is  granted  that  industrial  and  commercial  establish- 
ments can  get  a  chef  or  steward  who  can  accomplish  this,  his 
salary  alone  almost  guarantees  an  operating  loss.  A  profitable 
restaurant  is  usually  operated  at  least  sixteen  hours  a  day 
and  it  has  some  customers  all  the  time.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  shop  cafeteria  or  lunch  room  operates  about  twenty  minutes 
a  day  and  it  has  to  carry  almost  as  large  a  payroll  as  if  it 
were  a  commercial  restaurant.  It  can  of  course  call  on  a 
few  people  from  the  shop,  but  for  that  matter  so  does  the 


—  208  — 

commercial  restaurant  call  in  extra  people  at  rush  hours.  It 
requires  almost  as  many  cooks  and  dish  washers  to  carry  the 
peak  load  in  one  case  as  another.  Pastry  cooks  and  others 
who  prepare  cold  dishes  can  be  employed  more  in  proportion 
to  the  total  load.  The  employees  of  the  industrial  restaurant 
will  demand  and  get  the  same  weekly  pay  that  they  could  get 
in  the  commercial  restaurant  and  they  will  get  all  their  meals 
there  no  matter  what  the  agreement  may  be. 

Another  trouble  with  commissary  departments  is  that  they 
are  side  lines,  and  side  lines  seldom  pay  until  they  become  the 
central  object  of  some  individual  big  enough  to  make  them 
pay.  The  larger  number  of  so-called  successful  small  restau- 
rants are  only  successful  because  the  proprietor  is  active  with 
the  business  and  because  he  is  content,  or  has  to  be,  with  a 
smaller  income  for  his  own  business  than  he  would  accept  as 
a  salary  from  some  one  else. 

In  practice,  the  range  of  commissary  activities  is  very 
great.  The  cafeteria  idea  seems  to  serve  the  purpose  at  pres- 
ent, although  some  plants  maintain  a  lunch  room  similar  to 
that  shown  in  Figure  9.  As  a  matter  of  experience  common 
to  all  of  us,  it  is  better  to  wait  a  little  between  courses  for 
food  to  find  its  level  than  to  bolt  one  thing  after  another  in 
an  attempt  to  break  a  record.  When  men  to  be  served  stand 
in  line  over  five  minutes  the  time  seems  three  times  as  long 
as  it  is,  and  if  there  are  girls  in  the  line  and  they  have  a 
chance  to  pick  over  the  food  offered  they  will  use  up  so  much 
time  that  the  line  is  really  and  seriously  delayed.  There  is 
the  same  psychology  that  pertains  to  crowds  leaving  a  theater. 
They  will  push  and  fuss  until  they  reach  the  sidewalk,  then 
they  hate  to  leave  the  place. 

There  is  inevitably  complaint  if  the  cost  of  a  meal  is 
anywhere  near  the  cost  of  equally  good  food  and  service  out- 
side. This  is  perfectly  natural.  The  firm  almost  always  lets 
it  be  known  that  they  intend  to  serve  food  at  cost.  People 
in  general  know  nothing  about  actual  cost  of  cooked  food 
served  on  the  table.  For  instance,  they  know  that  sirloin 
steak  is  eighty  cents  a  pound,  and  a  quarter  of  a  pound  is 
enough  for  any  one.  Therefore  anything  over  twenty 
cents  for  an  order  of  steak  is  robbery.  Potatoes  cost  prac- 


—  209  — 


tically  nothing  by  the  bushel;  why  therefore  should  anything 
be  added  to  the  cost  for  potatoes?  If  people  would  only 
realize  that  hotels  and  restaurants  do  not,  as  a  rule,  make 
large  profits  except  when  they  cater  to  the  outsider  who  comes 
to  town  for  the  express  purpose  of  getting  rid  of  his  money, 
and  who  insists  on  being  conspicuous  while  he  is  about  it, 
they  might  perhaps  realize  that  it  is  beyond  the  power  of 
their  employer  to  cut  prices  at  all.  There  is  really  no  good 


FIGURE  9.    LUNCH  ROOM  AT  THE  LYNN  WORKS  OF  THE  GENERAL  ELECTRIC 

COMPANY. 

reason  why  they  should  expect  to  get  something  for  nothing 
from  their  employer.  It  is  this  feeling  that  prompts  many 
large  firms  to  give  the  privilege  of  serving  food  to  some  inde- 
pendent concern.  They  give  rent,  heat,  light,  etc.,  and  in 
return  expect  their  employees  shall  have  food  at  a  reasonable 
price.  What  the  employees  get  is  of  course  just  what  they 
would  get  at  any  similar  lunch  place.  There  is  no  balanced 
ration,  no  attempt  to  make  sure  of  food  values,  but  rather 
to  adopt  seasoning  that  will  permit  of  the  cheapest  cuts  of 
meat.  Letting  out  the  feeding  privilege  is  the  easiest  way 
to  handle  the  proposition  but,  barring  the  dinner  pail,  it  is 
likewise  the  worst. 


—  210  — 

Another  excellent  way  is  serving  only  a  portion  of  a  meal, 
expecting  that  all  the  cold  food,  with  the  exception  of  ice 
cream,  will  be  brought  by  the  workmen.  This  is  usually  car- 
ried out  on  the  canteen  plan  with  a  thick  soup  or  a  thin 
stew,  coffee  and  doughnuts,  milk,  pie,  and  ice  cream  on  the 
menu.  It  is  expected  that  all  hands  will  bring  their  own 
sandwiches  and  they  will  complete  the  meal  by  buying 
at  the  counter.  This  is  probably  quite  as  satisfactory '  to 
both  sides  as  anything  that  is  done.  Not  all  men  want  soup 
as  a  preliminary  to  their  sandwiches  and  this  allows  those 
who  make  a  full  meal  from  the  shop  menu  a  chance  to  buy 
promptly.  There  are  no  trays.  Each  person  buys  each  course 
separately,  which  again  distributes  the  load  better  than  the 
cafeteria.  When,  however,  one  is  standing  in  line  and  is  hungry 
he  feels  the  need  of  desserts  which,  when  he  comes  to  them, 
he  should  cut  down  on  or  perhaps  eliminate  entirely.  Almost 
any  cafeteria  will  show  quite  a  percentage  of  uneaten  desserts 
which  have  been  bought  because  *they  look  tempting  to  a 
hungry  man  but  do  not  taste  so  good  after  his  real  hunger 
was  satisfied. 

Another  help  is  the  so-called  milk  wagon  or  milk 
station.  This  is  for  the  sale  of  milk,  ginger  ale,  and  other  soft 
drinks  during  the  working  hours.  If  milk  is  available  around 
six  or  seven  cents  a  quart  it  can  be  sold  in  this  way  at  five 
cents  per  drink  (about  three  drinks  per  quart)  and  the  over- 
head carried.  Ginger  ale  with  the  red  pepper  left  out  can 
be  sold  for  even  less  money.  It  has  no  food  value,  but  it 
helps  quench  thirst  and  is  cooling.  The  red  pepper  is  useful 
only  to  stimulate  thirst  so  it  is  best  left  out  of  the  shop  drink. 
The  questions  which  confront  a  shop  considering  this  plan 
are:  first,  whether  it  is  best  to  allow  the  sale  of  it  during 
working  hours,  second,  if  it  is  to  be  sold  what  is  the  best 
way  to  dispense  it.  It  may  safely  be  assumed  that  if  men 
want  a  drink  during  working  hours  they  will  get  it.  It  may 
take  them  from  their  work  for  some  time  but  they  will  get 
it  nevertheless.  They  may  have  to  go  to  their  locker  or  wher- 
ever they  store  their  dinner  pail,  but  most  of  them  have  ther- 
mos bottles  or  they  bring  pint  bottles  of  milk  and  keep  them 
in  the  sinks  or  in  a  pail  of  water.  If  the  concern  does  not  wish 


—  211  — 

to  imitate  the  ostrich  it  can  centralize  all  this  drinking  by 
selling  milk  and  soft  drinks  in  such  a  way  that  every  one  will 
know  about  it  and  where  it  can  be  watched  and  controlled 
if  loafing  or  horseplay  starts.  If  it  is  offered  openly  there  is 
no  doubt  but  that  a  few  men  will  buy  who  would  not  be 
enterprising  enough  to  bring  it  with  them. 

A  study  of  some  thousands  of  men  at  The  Norton  Com- 
pany's plant  in  Worcester,  Mass.,  where  much  work  is  done 
under  hot  and  dusty  conditions,  showed  that  piece  workers  and 
day  workers  are  practically  equal  in  their  demands  for  drinks 
and  that  about  80  per  cent  of  the  workers  take  one  drink 
per  day  and  that  more  men  take  two  drinks  than  either  one 
or  three.  Very  few,  about  only  3  or  4  per  cent,  take  three  or 
four  drinks.  This  loss  of  time  may  be  very  readily  made  up, 
and  is  made  up  by  piece  workers.  How  much  day  workers 
make  up  is  problematic.  The  need  for  milk  in  shops  where 
dust  is  in  the  air  is  about  equally  felt  summer  and  winter. 
The  need  for  ginger  ale  is*much  greater  in  summer. 

It  is  expensive  to  dispense  these  drinks,  especially  the 
milk.  It  is  not  safe  to  figure  the  overhead  charge  at  less  than 
100  per  cent.  Ginger  ale  can  be  cooled,  allowed  to  warm  up 
over  night  and  cooled  again  without  loss,  but  milk  must  be 
kept  cold  all  the  time,  and  even  so  some  will  sour,  especially 
if  a  wet  day  comes  after  a  large  stock  is  on  hand.  The  only 
safe  way  to  handle  milk  is  never  to  have  enough,  but  that  is 
poor  practice  because  every  one  would  then  stop  to  take  a 
drink  earlier  than  he  otherwise  would  so  as  to  be  sure  of  a 
drink  before  it  is  all  gone.  The  greatest  call  for  all  refresh- 
ments comes  when  about  three  quarters  of  the  working 
period  has  passed  with  rather  little  regard  for  the  length  of 
the  period.  Men  take  a  drink  as  though  it  were  a  sort  of 
stimulant  to  carry  them  through  the  last  hour's  work  before 
the  time  for  a  complete  rest.  It  is  this  crowding  of  the  sales 
into  a  short  period  that  makes  the  vending  so  expensive.  The 
boys  who  sell  it  have  to  be  paid  for  a  full  day's  work,  because 
it  prevents  them  getting  a  job  which  would  call  for  full  time, 
and  because  if  they  were  only  required  to  be  there  during  the 
sales  period  they  could  not  use  the  rest  of  the  time  profitably. 
So  the  sales  places  are  kept  open  all  day.  They  sell  a  little 


—  212  — 

all  the  time,  but  the  peak  load  is  well  defined,  and  when  it 
exists  there  must  be  enough  boys  available  so  that  men  are 
not  kept  waiting  their  turn.  It  is  less  expensive  to  put  on 
enough  boys  than  it  is  to  let  men  get  in  the  habit  of  expect- 
ing to  line  up  and  start  a  conversation  which  may  last  quite 
a  while  after  they  have  disposed  of  their  drink, 

The  periodic  nature  of  this  thirst  makes  it  improbable  that 
milk  wagons  are  a  desirable  solution  of  the  problem  as  they 
must  start  on  their  rounds  an  hour  or  so  before  the  men  are 
ready  for  them,  and  then  they  keep  on  going  up  to  closing 
time.  They  also  only  visit  a  fraction  of  the  men  at  the  time 
that  they  feel  the  need  of  the  refreshment.  If  the  milk  sta- 
tion is  used  it  should  be  so  located  as  to  make  as  little  travel 
as  possible  in  a  plant  or  zone  and  so  that  the  travel  does  not 
go  through  some  departments  where  quiet  is  necessary.  They 
should  also  be  so  located  that  ice  and  supplies  may  be  delivered 
from  the  outside  of  the  building  so  that  the  shop  will  not  be 
invaded  by  outsiders.  There  should  also  be  in  the  stations 
facilities  for  washing  utensils.  Paper  cups  are  not  suitable 
and  cups  of  pasteboard  are  too  expensive;  but  a  mug  or  cup 
such  as  is  used  in  the  quick  lunch  places,  which  can  be  washed 
and  sterilized  in  a  steam  bath  before  they  are  used,  will  prove 
the  most  satisfactory. 

Whether  or  not  candy  should  be  sold  at  these  stations  is  an 
open  question,  usually  determined  in  each  plant  by  the  danger 
of  its  spoiling  finished  work.  In  a  textile  shop  it  is  probably 
bad,  in  a  forge  shop  it  might  be  good,  and  hard  candy  which 
does  not  melt  easily  would  be  the  choice.  The  use  of  candy 
is  either  wise  or  foolish  according  to  how  much  real  sugar 
and  chocolate  it  contains.  Many  of  our  returned  soldiers  have 
the  chocolate  habit,  so  they  will  probably  be  able  to  judge 
the  quality  of  what  is  sold  to  them.  If  candy  is  sold  there 
will  inevitably  come  the  demand  for  cigars  and  cigarettes 
and  so  on  until  these  milk  stations  are  in  danger  of  becoming 
newsstands  and  fruit  markets.  It  seems  wise,  therefore,  to 
check  this  at  the  very  start  and  confine  the  sales  to  milk, 
buttermilk,  and  chocolate  candy,  and  to  offer  only  one  drink 
like  ginger  ale. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  the  necessity  or  value  of 


—  213  — 

milk  stations  can  be  judged  by  the  tendency  of  the  men  to 
bring  milk  or  coffee  with  them  from  home,  or  to  buy  it  from 
enterprising  storekeepers  or  peddlers  nearby.  If  the  bubble 
fountains  are  full  of  pint  bottles  and  the  corners  are  piled 
with  thermos  bottles,  it  is  probably  better  to  make  a  business 
of  selling  milk  and  stand  the  overhead  charge  for  the  sake  of 
having  the  sale  out  in  the  open  and  under  control.  If  all  the 
loafing  has  to  be  done  out  in  sight,  there  are  very  few  men  that 
will  attempt  to  abuse  the  privilege. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 
HOUSING 

DURING  the  war  the  matter  of  housing  the  employees  of 
a  company  became  an  essential  to  good  employment 
management.  Many  families  were  moved  from  places  where 
housing  could  at  least  be  obtained  to  places  where  there  was 
none  and  under  the  rush  of  circumstances  it  was  only  natural 
that  mistakes  were  made.  The  greatest  mistake,  however,  is 
likely  to  be  perpetuated  unless  the  profession  of  industrial 
architecture  gives  more  consideration  to  the  needs,  wants,  and 
whims  of  the  workers.  The  advantage  to  a  firm  of  having 
acceptable  hqusing  facilities  near  its  plant  is  only  exceeded  by 
the  advantage  of  having  the  kind  of  housing  which  will  be  a 
strong  attraction  for  the  right  kind  of  men. 

Workmen's  families  are  of  all  sizes.  Race  suicide  is  not 
prominent,  however,  and  large  families  are  numerous.  The 
kind  of  a  house  which  appeals  to  the  owner  of  a  large  business 
and  the  kind  which  appeals  to  his  employees  may  be  very  dif- 
ferent. A  typical  family  may  consist  of  father,  mother,  two 
daughters,  and  two  sons,  in  which  case  three  chambers  will 
suffice.  On  the  other  hand,  there  may  be  one  daughter  and 
three  sons,  which  will  make  one  more  bedroom  necessary.  It 
is  hardly  right  to  induce  workmen  to  buy  houses  of  less  than 
six  rooms:  living  room,  kitchen,  and  four  chambers  in  addition 
to  bath  room.  The  plans  of  such  a  house  are  shown  in  Figure 
10.  If  a  considerable  village  is  to  be  built  there  will  undoubt- 
edly be  calls  for  all  sizes  of  apartments  from  a  single  room  up, 
but  the  smaller  ones  will  not  be  a  large  proportion  of  the 
whole,  and  the  people  occupying  them  will  be  moving  into 
larger  and  larger  apartments  as  time  goes  on. 

While  the  thoughts  of  an  architect  are  apt  to  center  around 

214 


—  215  — 

the  living  room,  the  thoughts  of  a  workman's  wife  center 
around  the  kitchen.  It  may  be  repugnant  to  the  architect 
to  eat  in  the  kitchen,  but  the  wife  realizes  that  a  great  num- 
ber of  steps  are  required  to  carry  food  and  dishes  into  the 
dining  room  and  to  clear  off  the  table  and  get  them  back 
again.  At  .the  very  lowest  estimate  she  can  save  half  a 
mile  of  travel  every  day  if  there  is  no  separate  dining  room. 
Pantries  are  another  luxury  that  waste  many  steps.  A  built-in 
kitchen  cabinet  is  much  more  to  the  point  and  costs  less. 

There  should  be  room  for  a  coal  stove  for  cooking,  which 
is  of  course  unnecessary  in  natural  gas  regions.    It  may  be 


'  Employees  House 
FIGURE  10.    SUGGESTED  PLANS  OF  A  WORKMAN'S  HOUSE. 

old-fashioned,  but  if  the  housewife  does  her  own  cooking  and 
does  not  know  how  to  use  gas  it  will  prove  invaluable  to  her. 
Then,  too,  the  gas  companies  unfortunately  take  advantage 
of  the  habits  they  so  carefully  nurture  and  boost  the  price  of 
gas  about  the  time  that  coal  stoves  appear  on  the  local  scrap 
heaps.  Home  architecture  should  center  around  the  kitchen, 
and  next  to  the  kitchen  should  be  the  "back  room."  It  should 
be  large  enough  not  only  for  the  ice  chest  but  also  for  a  coal 
bin  big  enough  to  hold  about  half  a  ton.  Since  the  chambers 
will  usually  be  upstairs,  the  bathroom  will  be  there  also, 
but  if  it  is  possible  to  install  a  downstairs  toilet  with  a  bowl 
and  wash  basin  it  will  be  appreciated  many  times,  and  all  the 
more  so  if  it  is  close  to  the  kitchen.  There  is  no  need  of 
making  the  ceiling  high ;  eight  feet  will  give  ample  room  and 
sufficient  ventilation. 


—  216  — 

The  size  of  the  kitchen  itself  is  very  important.  There  is 
really  more  danger  of  making  the  kitchen  too  large  than  of 
getting  it  too  small.  A  kitchen  is  a  one-woman  shop  and 
one  should  be  able  to  stand  in  one  place  and  almost  touch 
anything  from  the  stove  to  the  sink.  China  closets  are  not 
much  needed,  as  most  of  the  china  will  be  on  the  dining  table 
most  of  the  time.  Even  where  there  is  no  occasion  for  a  coal 
stove  there  should  be  a  chimney  and  a  hood  over  the  gas  range 
to  take  away  the  odors.  A  kitchen  10  feet  square  is  large 
enough  for  any  family,  even  if  the  functions  of  pantry  are  in- 
cluded. If  it  is  10  feet  by  14  feet  (or  possibly  10  feet  by  16 
feet)  it  is  amply  large  for  both  kitchen  and  dining  room  for 
a  family  of  six. 

The  most  troublesome  place  in  the  house  to  get  just  right 
is  the  kitchen  floor.  It  must  stand  washing.  Hot  stove  lids 
will  occasionally  be  dropped  on  it.  It  must  be  used  all  the 
time  so  varnish  is  almost  prohibited.  A  bare,  well-smoothed 
concrete  floor  is  probably  not  only  the  cheapest  but  the  best. 
More  expensive  but  very  fine  is  linoleum  laid  on  either  a  soft 
wood  floor  or  on  concrete.  It  will  outwear  almost  any  other 
flooring,  especially  if  the  quality  known  as  battleship  lino- 
leum is  used.  Hard-wood  floors  made  of  yellow  pine  are, 
however,  the  most  common.  If  rip-sawed  they  are  not  bad, 
but  if  they  are  the  plain-sawed  boards  they  ultimately  splinter. 
These  floors  become  almost  black  if  treated  with  any  of  the 
ordinary  floor  oils,  which  many  women  consider  an  advantage 
because  they  hide  the  dirt.  Maple  flooring  is  not  often  used 
in  the  cheaper  class  of  houses,  because  of  its  cost.  The  old- 
fashioned  oil  cloth  was  not  very  bad  but  it  was  not  made  of 
good  materials  and  was  not  thick  enough  to  stand  the  wear. 

Next  come  the  sleeping  rooms.  Small  rooms  with  cot 
beds  are  well  liked.  Small  rugs  about  8  feet  by  10  feet  are 
easily  obtained,  and  if  the  rooms  are  9  by  11  a  very  narrow 
hard-wood  border  allows  the  use  of  these  rugs.  It  is  better 
to  make  the  rooms  rectangular  so  that  rugs  can  be  used,  for 
every  one  avoids  carpets  on  account  of  the  cutting  and  fitting 
and  taking  up  and  beating  and  relaying,  but  every  one  likes 
a  good  rug  that  can  be  easily  taken  up  and  cleaned  when 
necessary.  The  ventilation  of  the  bedrooms  should  also  be 


—  217  — 

considered  and  can  frequently  be  secured  by  placing  doors  so 
that  cross  currents  of  air  can  be  induced  to  flow  no  matter 
which  way  the  wind  is  blowing.  If  bedrooms  and  bathroom 
can  be  square,  that  is,  the  side  walls  run  clear  to  the  ceiling 
with  the  walls  vertical  all  around,  it  will  be  appreciated.  In 
spite  of  the  time-honored  and  entirely  truthful  tales  about  the 
use  of  bathtubs  as  coal  bins,  if  a  proper  bin  is  provided  there 
is  little  doubt  but  that  bathtubs  will  be  more  and  more  used 
for  their  legitimate  purposes  by  our  best  working  families. 
The  bathroom  floor  offers  the  same  problem  as  the  kitchen 
floor  and  can  be  solved  in  the  same  way. 

The  heating  of  the  house  is  another  important  matter. 
The  great  temptation  is  to  put  in  a  small  heater  of  whatever 
kind  is  used,  relying  on  the  maker's  guarantee  of  a  70  degree 
inside  temperature  in  zero  weather.  An  expert  can  make 
even  a  small  heater  do  this  by  frequent  feeding  of  coal,  but 
what  is  required  is  a  heater  that  will  give  heat  a  few  minutes 
after  it  is  opened  up  in  the  morning  and  continue  to  heat  with 
the  small  amount  of  fuel  which  the  wife  puts  on  in  the  middle 
of  the  day.  This  means  a  large  heater,  whether  it  be  hot  air, 
steam  or  hot  water.  Since  the  price  of  a  hot-air  outfit  is 
necessarily  less  than  either  of  the  other  two  it  is  very  apt  to 
be  the  choice,  and  it  is  a  very  good  choice  except  when  a  cold 
wind  is  likely  to  come  from  the  north  for  several  days  in 
succession.  Then  it  becomes  impossible  to  heat  the  north 
side  of  the  house.  A  coil  of  pipe  in  the  furnace  of  the  heater 
connected  to  one  or  two  hot-water  radiators  will  often,  how- 
ever, cure  this  trouble.  As  between  steam  and  hot-water  heat, 
the  family  that  lives  in  the  house  may  not  be  able  to  tell 
which  they  have.  Hot  water  responds  more  slowly  to  open 
drafts  and  carries  its  heat  longer,  and  if  cared  for  intelligently 
it  may  give  a  more  even  heat,  but  if  neglected  it  will  cause 
longer  periods  of  shivering. 

Heating  of  water  is  another  problem.  If  coal  stoves  were 
used  exclusively  it  would  be  the  logical  thing  to  put  in  a 
boiler  and  use  the  waterback  in  the  stove,  though  any  less 
efficient  scheme  would  be  hard  to  find.  Since  gas  is  so  gen- 
erally used  there  should  be  a  gas  heater  for  this  purpose  even 
though  it  is  very  expensive.  A  separate  laundry  is  desirable 


—  218  — 

but  not  necessary,  except  in  a  few  homes.  Most  housewives 
who  do  their  own  work  prefer  to  wash  in  the  kitchen.  The 
set  tubs  make  an  excellent  table  through  the  week  and  do  not 
take  up  much  room.  On  the  other  hand,  and  especially  while 
there  are  small  children  in  the  family,  it  may  be  very  desirable 
for  the  washwoman  to  have  a  place  by  herself,  perhaps  in 
the  basement,  so  that  the  woman  of  the  house  may  go  on 
with  her  regular  rounds  of  duty. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  absolutely  necessary  parts 
of  the  house.  We  must,  however,  make  an  appearance. 
There  must  be  a  front  hall  or  reception  room  and  a  living 
room.  Parlors  seem  to  be  things  of  the  past  and  rightly  so. 
The  reception  room  has  also  dwindled  in  many  recent  cases 
to  a  storm  vestibule  just  big  enough  to  get  into  and  close 
the  door.  The  living  room  is  the  main  room.  The  space 
actually  used  by  a  family  of  six  for  living  purposes,  with  an 
occasional  caller,  is  about  200  square  feet.  More  is  for  show 
only  and  for  the  very  occasional  wedding  or  funeral.  Whether 
a  fireplace  can  be  afforded  is  a  question.  It  is  not  altogether 
a  luxury  for  during  at  least  four  months  of  the  year  in  a  New 
England  climate  it  saves  the  starting  of  a  fire  in  the  furnace. 
If  the  family  lives  in  the  kitchen  there  is  not  much  advantage 
in  building  a  fireplace  in  the  living  room. 

The  process  of  evolution  going  on  in  these  families  is  of 
course  away  from  the  kitchen  toward  the  living-room  and 
dining-room  stage.  Not  all  houses  need  have  all  the  chambers 
furnished  at  once.  If  houses  are  rented  there  is  an  economy 
in  building  some  with  only  four  rooms  and  another  with  more, 
but  if  they  are  to  be  sold,  the  purchaser  should  not  be  asked 
to  bet  on  the  future  size  of  his  family. 

The  size  of  lot  upon  which  the  house  is  built  is  an  exceed- 
ingly important  item.  Bearing  in  mind  the  tendency  toward 
automobile  life  the  small  lots  near  large  cities  are  a  necessity. 
They  save  time  spent  mowing  lawns,  tending  gardens  and 
shrubbery,  and  shoveling  sidewalks.  With  the  beautiful 
drives  and  parks  for  the  upkeep  of  which  we  are  all  taxed  it 
seems  a  pity  for  every  one  to  try  to  have  a  little  exclusive 
park  of  his  own,  for  unless  one  can  control  at  least  an  acre 
of  land  he  cannot  make  much  of  a  park.  Gardens  for  vege- 


—  219  — 

tables  are  better  if  located  at  a  little  distance  from  the  home 
rather  than  close  by  the  house. 

Another  factor  which  the  purchaser  or  tenant  will  consider 
is  the  location.  He  wants  to  be  within  walking  distance  of 
the  shop,  which  usually  means  not  over  a  mile,  but  his  wife, 
and  especially  his  daughters,  will  insist  that  the  house  shall 
not  be  in  the  back  yard  of  the  shop  or  of  any  shop.  If  there 
is  no  easy  way  to  get  from  the  residential  district  to  the 
shopping  district  except  by  passing  the  shop,  that  district  had 
best  be  left  unhoused.  This  is  somewhat  of  an  argument 
against  grouping  a  number  of  shops  in  one  locality  or  allowing 
a  shop  to  grow  too  large.  If  we  can  have  all  the  space  within 
one  mile  of  the  shop  and  outside  the  half  mile  circle  for  hous- 
ing we  can  place  6500  families  on  the  assumption  of  5000 
square  feet  for  each  lot  and  as  much  more  in  streets  and  parks. 
Each  family  will  average  about  one  and  one-half  workers,  ex- 
cept in  the  textile  districts  where  the  average  will  be  at  least 
twice  as  great,  giving  us  10,000  to  20,000  as  the  limit  for  a 
plant  with  all  the  workers  walking  home  to  lunch,  and  all 
far  enough  from  the  shop  to  feel  that  they  are  home  when 
they  get  there. 

Thus  far  we  have  discussed  the  question  of  housing  only 
from  the  employee's  standpoint  and  we  have  dealt  with  single 
houses  only  because  the  largest  number  will  live  in  single 
houses.  A  two-family  house  is  not  objectionable,  however, 
because  almost  any  two  sets  of  people  can  adjust  themselves 
to  each  other,  but  three  almost  always  split  into  a  clique  of 
two.  The  lone  family  soon  moves  out  but  only  to  be  replaced 
by  another  which  in  turn  either  gets  out  or  else  breaks  up 
the  combination  by  forming  a  friendship  with  one  of  the 
others.  The  only  successful  three  family  combination  is  one 
in  which  one  family  owns  the  house  and  rents  the  other  two 
apartments.  The  two  tenants  will  then  form  a  defensive  com- 
bination and  fight  for  their  rights. 

The  concern  which  goes  into  housing  usually  does  so  for 
one  of  two  reasons,  first,  because  they  find  that  they  cannot 
expand  or  even  keep  their  force  together  without  it,  and  sec- 
ond, because  they  think  it  good  advertising.  Concerns  which 
proceed  upon  the  first  plan  will  usually  demand  economy  and 


—  220  — 

so-called  efficiency,  but  those  who  follow  the  second  will 
spend  a  lot  of  money  before  they  come  to  a  realization  of  the 
small  returns  for  such  large  outlays.  There  are  two  stages 
in  the  development  of  a  housing  plan.  The  first,  when  the 
housing  is  sufficient  to  attract  the  necessary  people  to  operate 
the  plant,  and  the  second,  when  it  is  large  enough  so  that  no 
one  has  to  be  hired  who  lives  out  of  walking  distance.  The 
first  stage  merely  covers  a  necessity ;  it  shows  no  profit  on  the 
books,  in  fact  it  may  very  likely  show  a  loss.  It  may  be  that 
an  increase  in  wages  for  all  hands  is  prevented  at  this  stage 
of  the  development  but  no  one  knows  for  a  certainty.  There 
is  little  likelihood  that  the  houses  will  rent  for  enough  to  cover 
a  fair  return  on  all  the  expense  incurred.  The  greatest  value 
is  having  met  a  necessity.  The  second  stage,  when  every  one 
who  works  in  the  shop  lives  within  walking  distance,  marks  a 
distinct  economic  gain.  It  may  be  that  the  employee  profits 
by  his  saving  of  carfare,  time,  and  luncheons,  or  it  may  be 
that  the  employer  profits  by  attracting  people  at  a  lower  wage 
or  because  he  has  the  choice  of  a  better  grade  of  people.  The 
apparent  loser  is  the  local  transportation  company,  but  that 
company  will  probably  take  the  broad  ground  that  the  excess 
call  on  them  for  transportation  morning  and  night  can  only 
be  met  with  a  loss,  and  that  the  profit  comes  from  the  rides 
paid  for  by  their  families,  even  though  the  total  so  spent  is 
less  than  that  which  would  be  paid  for  riding  to  and  from 
work.  Thus  the  establishment  of  ample  housing  near  the 
shop  does  not  transfer  a  loss  from  one  party  to  another,  but 
it  creates  a  distinct  gain  for  every  one. 

If  the  employer  goes  into  housing  from  altruistic  motives, 
or  if  he  does  it  for  advertising  or  for  show,  he  will  undoubtedly 
hire  an  expensive  architect  and  build  a  beautiful  village,  but 
his  experiences  do  not  have  much  in  them  to  aid  the  firm  which 
goes  into  it  for  revenue  only.  There  is  also  a  question,  which 
is  open  to  debate,  as  to  whether  a  firm  which  builds  a  model 
village  and  sells  below  cost  is  doing  right  by  his  workmen  or 
by  his  competitors. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the,  employer  who  is  in  need  of 
housing,  or  who  sees  the  economic  gain  from  it,  the  best  hous- 
ing is  that  which  satisfies  the  workman,  or  more  especially  his 


—  221  — 

family,  and  which  costs  him  the  least  in  the  long  run.  There 
is  a  distinction  between  "cheap"  housing  and  "low  cost"  hous- 
ing. The  former  is  obtained  by  light  flimsy  construction  and 
poor  workmanship;  the  latter  by  so  designing  that  the  maxi- 
mum useful  space  is  placed  within  the  minimum  of  walls 
and  roofs,  and  by  using  economically  such  materials  as  will 
give  the  maximum  of  wear  before  they  need  be  replaced. 

The  design  that  gives  the  most  room  for  the  least  money 
is  the  one  which  is  nearest  a  cube.  For  a  single  house,  built 
around  the  kitchen  as  previously  suggested,  such  a  design 


Front  View  with  Hip  Roof 
A 


End  View  with  Gambrel  Roof. 

B 
FIGURE  11.    SUGGESTED  TYPES  OP  WORKMEN'S  HOUSES. 


will  give  a  building  about  26  feet  square,  two  full  stories  high, 
and  with  a  hip  roof,  a  front  view  of  which  is  shown  in  Figure 
11-A.  The  plans  of  such  a  house  have  already  been  shown  in 
Figure  10.  The  first  floor  should  contain  the  living  room, 
kitchen,  back  room,  and  toilet.  The  second  story  will  be  di- 
vided into  four  sleeping  rooms,  each  9  feet  by  11  feet,  and  a 
narrow  but  ample  bathroom.  This  floor  plan  gives  small 
closets  in  each  chamber.  These  can  be  made  deeper  by  length- 
ening the  house  about  one  or  two  feet.  If  a  little  more  luxury 
is  needed  a  fireplace  can  be  built  into  the  living  room,  using  the 
same  chimney  with  an  additional  flue  that  is  used  for  the 
kitchen.  A  porch  can  be  added  at  the  end  of  the  living  room 
as  indicated  by  the  dotted  lines  of  Figure  11-A,  and  when  the 
dining-room  stage  is  reached  the  necessary  space  can  be  taken 


—  222  — 

from  the  kitchen  and  back  room  and  a  small  dining  room 
made.  This  plan  gives  four  corner  sleeping  rooms  with  cross 
currents  of  air  and  doors  all  at  the  center  of  the  second  floor  so 
that  any  circulation  of  air  that  is  possible  is  obtained.  The 
objection  to  the  plan  is  that  the  house  is  essentially  ugly, 
and  no  amount  of  shrubbery  grown  around  it  can  make  it 
much  less  of  a  blot  on  the  landscape.  It  will,  however,  suit 
the  people  who  live  in  it  and  it  gives  the  owner  extremely 
good  value  for  the  money  put  into  it,  and  ugly  as  it  is,  it  is 
not  so  ugly  as  the  three-tenement  house  commonly  known 
as  the  three-decker. 

This  house  can  be  slightly  improved  in  looks  by  giving  it 
a  gambrel  roof  as  shown  in  Figure  11-B.  This  costs  more  be- 
cause the  gables  are  added  on  each  end  and  the  dormer  win- 
dows must  be  added  for  each  sleeping  room  in  order  to  obtain 
the  circulation  of  air  needed.  By  slightly  modifying  these 
houses  with  different  designs  of  stoops  and  piazzas,  making 
some  face  the  road  and  some  at  right  angles  to  it,  building 
some  of  shingles  and  others  of  stucco,  a  pleasing  variation  can 
be  obtained  which  will  make  the  casual  observer  think  that 
he  is  in  a  model  village  designed  by  some  great  architect.  If 
there  is  also  added  curved  streets,  trees  and  shrubbery,  a  very 
pretty  village  is  obtained.  Half  the  effect  of  a  village  is 
obtained  by  what  is  concealed.  Curved  roads  lead  one  to 
want  to  see  what  is  around  the  curve.  Trees  and  shrubbery 
conceal,  and  in  sufficient  profusion  make  almost  anything 
that  man  can  build  beautiful,  or  at  least  bearable. 

Such  a  house  as  has  been  described  can  also  be  joined  to 
another  as  a  double  house.  Double  houses  are  not,  however, 
desirable.  They  add  a  little  to  the  available  space,  if  each  half 
house  is  allotted  the  same  room  as  single  houses,  but  that  is 
not  always  enough  advantage  to  offset  the  decreased  ventila- 
tion in  the  rooms  on  the  sides  which  adjoin.  The  next  home 
usually  considered  is  a  two-family  house,  each  having  a  floor 
one  above  the  other.  If  the  housing  is  a  renting  propo- 
sition this  is  very  acceptable,  but  if  the  houses  are  to  be  sold 
most  families  will  prefer  to  have  a  single  house  or  else  build  a 
three-decker  and  rent  two  flats,  occupying  the  other  them- 
selves. While  this  does  not  make  for  happy  living  conditions 


—  223  — 

it  is  profitable  as  the  rent  from  two  flats  usually  pays  all  the 
expenses  of  the  house  and  gradually  reduces  the  mortgage. 

The  greatest  objection  to  the  three-decker  is  its  appear- 
ance. It  cannot  by  any  possibility  be  made  good  looking. 
It  stands  too  high  for  even  trees  to  conceal  and  it  is  long  and 
narrow  as  well  as  high.  Two-  or  three-deckers  are  sometimes 
placed  side  by  side  and  the  whole  then  made  nearly  a  cube. 
The  architectural  development  is  handled  more  like  a  city 
block  which  is  in  turn  an  imitation  of  an  Italian  urban  castle. 
That  is,  the  first  floor  is  stucco  or  covered  with  wide  weather- 
boards, the  second,  shingled  or  narrow  clapboards  and  the 
third  has  windows  in  pairs  with  an  arch  over  them  and  col- 
umns between,  all  being  surmounted  by  a  heavy  cornice.  Such 
an  effect  carried  out  in  stone  and  brick  is  very  effective,  but 
when  done  in  wood  and  left  unpainted  half  the  time  it  is  not 
so  very  much  more  impressive  than  the  isolated  three-decker. 
It  has  also  the  disadvantage  that  the  rooms  in  the  two  adja- 
cent sides  look  directly  at  each  other  and  are  necessarily  dark. 

There  is  also  the  Philadelphia  style  house,  built  by  the 
mile  and  every  one  the  same  except  for  the  number  on  the 
door  and  the  cut  of  the  window  draperies.  These  houses  ap- 
peal to  the  automobile  family.  They  cost  little.  Each  room 
has  some  sort  of  a  window ;  they  are  easily  heated  hi  cold 
weather;  the  sidewalk  is  easily  shoveled  and  they  are  usually 
located  near  the  shopping  and  theater  regions.  They  must 
be  attractive  in  appearance  to  some  people  or  they  would  not 
be  tolerated. 

The  apartment  building  is  also  not  so  likely  to  appeal  to 
employers  except  as  an  adjunct  to  a  village.  He  may  want 
to  build  a  large  building  which  is  a  combination  of  hotel,  club 
house,  and  apartment  house,  but  it  is  little  more  than  a 
transient  proposition.  It  may  house  new  arrivals  in  the  com- 
pany's employ  while  they  are  looking  around  for  a  perma- 
nent place.  It  may  appeal  to  newly  married  couples,  and  it 
may  be  a  show  place  at  which  to  put  up  visitors  when  the  of- 
ficials do  not  care  to  or  cannot  invite  them  home.  Such  a 
combination  apartment  house  and  hotel  brings  in  problems 
of  management  much  apart  from  those  of  manufacturing. 
Any  firm  undertaking  it  is  apt  to  discover  that  it  is  necessary 


994 

&£S~I. 

to  employ  some  one  who  knows  the  business  to  conduct  it, 
and  then  they  are  very  sure  to  discover  that  if  the  salary 
which  they  pay  such  a  man  is  charged  up  to  the  operating 
costs,  there  is  a  sizable  deficit.  That  is,  such  a  hotel,  or 
whatever  it  may  be  called,  is  not  likely  to  be  large  enough  to 
pay  the  income  to  the  manager  that  he  can  earn  working  for 
some  one  else.  There  is  no  reason  for  expecting  competent 
managers  to  leave  good  jobs  and  take  up  similar  work  for  a 
manufacturing  plant  where  no  one  knows  the  hotel  business 
and  subject  themselves  to  the  added  restrictions  of  that  or- 
ganization. Some  of  them  do  it  without  either  pleasing  them- 
selves or  the  manufacturers.  A  hotel  only  pays  when  it  is 
large  enough  to  pay  a  manager  a  good  income,  which  he  earns 
by  scrutinizing  every  expense  and  when  it  can  exploit  every 
source  of  income  to  the  limit.  Just  as  soon  as  an  employer 
starts  a  hotel  every  one  gives  up  paying  tips,  or  hat  checks. 
In  other  words,  they  do  not  expect  to  stand  for  any  of  the 
methods  of  extracting  little  extras  which  they  cheerfully  pay 
when  they  are  in  a  regular  hotel.  They  will  kick  about  prices 
of  food  which  they  would  never  think  of  complaining  about 
under  other  conditions.  The  only  way  such  a  hotel  can  be 
made  to  pay  is  to  conduct  it  the  way  other  hotels  are  con- 
ducted; in  other  words  as  an  independent  unit  of  sufficient 
size  to  insure  business  enough  to  carry  the  overhead  of  a 
capable  organization.  Because  a  $6000  man  can  succeed  with 
one  size  plant  is  no  assurance  that  a  $3000  man  can  succeed 
with  a  plant  half  the  size. 

It  is  not  likely  that  firms  will  undertake  to  any  very  great 
extent  the  building  of  apartment  houses  for  single  men  or 
women.  It  is  not  worth  so  much  to  get  them  within  walk- 
ing distance  because  with  them  the  time  away  from  the  shop  is 
apt  to  be  a  drag  rather  than  an  asset.  It  is  the  man  with  a 
family  that  is  the  problem.  In  fact  a  housing  plan  with  fairly 
roomy  houses  such  as  described  also  takes  care  of  the  single 
men  and  women  because  each  of  the  small  families  that  buys 
or  rents  a  house  is  quite  likely  to  offer  a  room  to  rent. 

Whether  houses  are  sold  or  rented,  the  relation  of  landlord 
to  tenant  is  bound  to  occur  in  its  principal  form  for  some 
time.  If  a  sale  is  made  it  will  most  likely  be  a  conditional 


sale  with  only  a  small  equity  owned  by  the  possessor.  An  out- 
right sale  for  cash  is  very  unusual.  Many  of  those  who  buy 
do  so  with  no  expectation  at  the  time  of  ever  completing  the 
purchase,  but  they  buy  because  they  can  thereby  get  into  a 
house  without  fighting  for  their  children's  existence.  If  a  sale 
is  made  it  will  usually  be  necessary  to  make  it  subject  to  a  first 
mortgage,  which  may  be  held  by  a  savings  bank,  and  a  second 
mortgage  held  by  the  company.  This  second  mortgage  is  the 
one  on  which  payments  on  the  principal  are  credited.  The 
bank  mortgage  can  undoubtedly  go  on  indefinitely  if  the  places 
are  kept  up. 

Some  firms  prefer  to  own  all  this  property  and  offer  it  for 
rent  only  to  employees,  and  in  such  cases  when  the  relations 
of  employee  cease  he  will  be  expected  to  give  up  his  tenantry. 
Others  take  the  extreme  ground  that  they  are  not  in  the  real 
estate  business  from  choice,  but  want  to  get  out  of  it  as  soon  as 
possible  by  selling  the  house,  preferably,  of  course,  to  employ- 
ees who  are  old  and  faithful  and  who  can  be  relied  on  to  stay. 
Both  firms,  however,  overlook  the  real  reason  for  offering 
housing  which  is  to  get  a  sufficient  supply  of  help  within  walk- 
ing distance  of  the  plant  to  man  the  shop.  In  order  to  do  so 
there  must  be  entire  confidence  on  the  part  of  the  workman 
in  the  justice  and  fair  play  of  the  employer,  and  that  means 
usually  on  the  part  of  the  foreman.  Ask  almost  any  man 
from  the  shops  and  the  factories  for  whom  he  works  and  his 
first  reply  is  the  name  of  his  boss,  then  he  is  ready  to  tell  for 
whom  his  boss  works.  A  single  unjust  eviction  early  in  the 
housing  work  will  excite  a  distrust  which  it  will  take  years  to 
overcome.  A  firm  really  cannot  afford  to  dispossess  a  fam- 
ily until  the  neighbors  demand  it,  and  never  because  he  ceases 
to  work  for  the  concern  that  owns  the  house.  The  fact  that 
a  tenant  is  also  an  employee  ought  not  to  influence  his  ten- 
ancy. If  it  does  he  is  an  object  of  charity,  or  else  he  is  not 
being  paid  his  full  value  in  wages.  For  this  reason  it  is  best 
that  all  the  workers'  relations  to  the  housing  proposition  should 
be  through  people  with  whom  he  does  not  come  in  contact 
as  an  employee. 

If  a  firm  goes  into  housing  with  the  idea  of  investing  a 
small  sum  of  money  and  then  building  more  houses  as  pay- 


—  226  — 

ments  are  made  they  will  make  very  slow  progress.  Suppose 
that  $100,000  is  appropriated  and  that  with  it  twenty  houses 
are  built  and  sold.  If  the  owners  of  each  has  paid  down  $500, 
or  10  per  cent  of  the  purchase  price,  it  cannot  be  expected 
that  over  $150  will  be  paid  on  the  principal  of  each  during 
a  year,  or  a  total  of  $3000  per  year,  which  is  not  enough  to 
build  another  house  until  eight  months  have  passed.  At  this 
rate  it  would  be  almost  thirty-six  years  before  one  home  a 
month  could  be  built,  unless  more  money  is  put  into  the 
venture.  It  may  be  safely  stated  that  at  present  in  the  north- 
ern part  of  the  country  at  least,  $5000  is  none  too  much  to 
estimate  for  each  house.  The  $1500  or  $2000  house  of  which 
we  occasionally  hear  is  based  on  much  less  room  than  has 
so  far  been  referred  to  and  prices  that  have  a  historical 
value  only. 

A  concern  with  5000  employees  in  many  lines  of  manu- 
facturing will  have  an  actual  capital  of  about  $5,000,000.  If 
it  finds  it  necessary  to  provide  housing  it  may  find  one  or  two 
hundred  houses  to  attract  the  necessary  employees  to  carry 
their  load,  but  if  they  are  going  to  house  enough  of  their  men 
to  bring  them  the  greatest  saving — that  due  to  men  living 
within  walking  distance — they  will  have  to  build  approxi- 
mately 2000  homes,  which  in  turn  means  another  $10,000,000 
invested  in  real  estate.  Half  of  this  can  be  placed  in  savings 
banks  and  the  other  half  can  be  wiped  out  in  from  ten  to  fifteen 
years  by  a  sinking  fund  for  rents  or  a  system  of  partial  pay- 
ments if  the  property  is  sold.  It  is  thus  a  problem  of  large 
magnitude  and  one  which  any  firm  may  be  pardoned  for  ap- 
proaching with  reluctance.  These  people  must  live  some- 
where, however,  and  that  somewhere  will  be  wherever  a  real 
estate  speculator  has  been  able  to  get  hold  of  an  attractive 
plot  of  land  cheap  enough,  but  located  with  very  little  refer- 
ences to  the  place  where  men  may  find  work. 

It  would  seem  that  there  might  be  real  estate  operators 
glad  to  work  with  employers  to  develop  suitable  areas.  Their 
interests,  however,  are  purely  selfish  and  the  problems  of  em- 
ployment are  not  their  problems;  consequently  they  are  not 
altogether  sympathetic  toward  any  proposition  that  does  not 
promise  them  their  maximum  quick  returns  on  money  in- 


—  227  — 

vested.  If  an  appeal  is  made  to  the  local  chamber  of  com- 
merce the  best  that  can  be  done  is  to  ask  for  a  general  hous- 
ing plan  for  all  industries,  which  will  surely  result  in  building 
where  all  shops  are  as  nearly  the  same  distance  as  possible  and 
everybody  has  to  use  the  trolleys,  which  is  just  what  the  in- 
dividual employer  wants  to  avoid  The  problem  is  really 
the  problem  of  employers,  and  he  is  actuated  by  just  as  selfish 
motives  as  he  is  in  any  other  part  of  his  business.  He  should 
be  willing  and  anxious  to  carry  his  own  burdens.  If  he  moves 
his  plant  into  the  country  he  should  count  the  cost  of  hous- 
ing as  part  of  the  necessary  capital  invested,  and  just  as  nec- 
essary as  the  buildings  to  house  his  machinery  and  materials. 


CHAPTER  XXX 
HEALTH  AND  SANITATION 

MANY  managers  are  of  the  opinion  that  if  the  local  city 
ordinances  regarding  sanitation  are  amply  strict,  and 
that  if  they  are  complied  with  there  is  nothing  further  that 
they  should  be  called  upon  to  do.  However,  no  matter  how 
stringent  these  regulations  may  be  or  how  well  they  are  en- 
forced, there  is  still  a  great  need  for  education  along  these  lines, 
for  health  and  sanitation  in  the  shop  depend  very  largely  on 
cleanliness.  Cleanliness  is  closely  tied  up  with  insurance  risk. 
Greasy  papers,  for  instance,  in  which  food  was  wrapped  make 
an  excellent  foundation  for  spontaneous  combustion.  Posting 
general  orders  to  clean  up  does  no  good,  for  what  is  every- 
body's business  is  nobody's  business. 

Some  shops  pride  themselves  on  looking  dirty,  on  the 
ground  that  they  are  too  busy  to  clean  up.  This  is  foolish,  as 
it  costs  no  more  to  keep  clean  all  the  time  than  to  upset  pro- 
duction occasionally  and  have  a  general  housecleaning.  Chips 
in  small  quantities  can  be  removed  without  stopping  the  ma- 
chinery. Oil  pans  save  oil,  as  well  as  prevent  floors  getting 
oil-soaked.  Greasy  belts  do  not  pull;  they  only  go  around. 
Wiping  chips  from  machine  tools  with  waste  for  lack  of 
brushes  consumes  the  waste.  Drawers  full  of  greasy  overalls 
and  closets  full  of  old  newspapers  cannot  be  used  for  legiti- 
mate purposes.  In  fact,  it  is  a  question  whether  closets  and 
drawers  have  a  legitimate  place  in  a  shop  at  all.  Everything 
ought  to  be  out  in  the  open,  and  visible  even  to  the  casual  ob- 
server. If  overalls  are  too  dirty  to  be  worn  they  should  be 
washed,  or  thrown  away.  The  same  applies  to  toilets  and 
locker  rooms.  Why  should  there  be  privacy?  In  our  army 
camps  there  are  no  such  things  as  partitions,  let  alone  doors 

228 


—  229  — 

inside  the  toilets.  Light  is  present  everywhere.  Lockers  for 
clothes  are  prescribed  by  law  in  some  states,  and  the  law  is 
obeyed  to  the  letter,  but  is  there  any  worse  plan  than  to  store 
one's  apparel  in  a  tin  box  a  foot  square  and  three  feet  high? 

Looking  at  these  matters  from  an  employment  point  of 
view,  we  must  admit  that  men  seldom,  if  ever,  inquire  in  the 
employment  department  about  them,  but  if  the  general  man- 
ager will  give  up  his  motor  car  occasionally  and  ride  in  the 
smoking  seats  of  trolleys  he  will  hear  things  that  will  doubt- 
less surprise  him,  regardless  of  how  much  he  tries  to  make  his 
shop  a  model  one,  that  is  unless  he  has  taken  advice  and  sug- 
gestions from  the  shop,  or  unless  he  used  to  work  in  the  shop 
himself.  It  is  simply  surprising  how  well  men  understand 
the  condition  of  business  and  how  clearly  they  see  through 
the  camouflage  which  employers  sometimes  throw  around 
their  efforts  to  make  money  and  at  the  same  time  appear  open 
and  broadminded. 

If  it  were  not  for  state  laws,  it  would  be  better  to  check 
all  garments  and  hang  all  coats  on  a  standard  coat  hanger 
where  there  is  light  and  a  circulation  of  air.  Where  this  has 
been  tried,  however,  there  is  dissatisfaction,  due  not  to  any 
inherent  difficulty  with  the  plan,  but  to  the  inadequate  num- 
ber of  people  assigned  to  do  the  checking,  especially  on  the 
exit  side.  Men  would  rather  fight  with  each  other  for  ten 
minutes  in  the  endeavor  to  get  to  their  own  lockers  than  to 
wait  comfortably  in  line  the  same  length  of  time,  and  any  man 
who  is  not  outside  the  shop  in  ten  minutes  feels  as  though  he 
were  inefficient.  This  feeling  is  usually  fostered  by  the  trans- 
portation companies.  They  want  to  pull  out  their  trains  or 
trolleys  the  instant  their  cars  are  full,  and  in  consequence 
every  one  wants  to  get  the  first  car.  An  arrangement  by 
which  people  are  admitted  to  the  car  through  a  turnstile,  and 
only  as  many  are  admitted  as  can  be  comfortably  carried,  is 
helpful.  The  cars  can  also  be  so  distributed  that  the  occa- 
sional employee  who  wants  to  strike  one  more  blow  with  his 
hammer  after  the  whistle  blows  can  do  so,  and  yet  not  have  to 
walk  home.  Any  manager  who  deplores  the  avidity  with 
which  his  men  leave  their  work  should  look  into  the  conditions 
surrounding  it  and  see  if  he  himself  is  not  partly  to  blame. 


—  230  — 

Another  item  of  consequence  is  the  storage  of  food.  No 
matter  how  good  the  food  that  is  offered  by  the  company  res- 
taurant or  cafeteria  there  will  always  be  some  who  prefer 
their  dinner  pail  and  bottled  coffee  or  milk.  Left  to  them- 
selves they  deposit  these  where  they  can  easily  find  them,  and 
having  them  near  at  hand,  it  is  only  natural  that  they  should 
stop  around  ten  o'clock  to  consume  them.  This  takes  time 
and  also  in  certain  cases  spoils  work,  for  some  products  are 
ruined  by  discoloration,  and  a  greasy  doughnut  laid  on  top  of 
some  finished  product  may  make  it  worthless.  Food  brought 
into  the  shop  should  be  stored  in  the  lockers  or  checked  in 
such  a  way  as  to  be  obtainable  only  out  of  working  hours. 
In  some  places  refrigerators  are  provided  and  milk  bottles  left 
there,  but  the  thermos  bottle  has  become  popular  and  it  does 
not  now  seem  necessary  to  provide  refrigerators. 

Personal  cleanliness  should  be  insisted  upon  and  men  should 
be  discouraged  from  going  out  at  night  without  washing.  In 
one  way  it  is  none  of  the  company's  business  how  its  employees 
look  on  the  street,  but  in  another  way  it  is  very  much  their 
affair.  The  employees  have  no  way  of  enforcing  a  standard 
of  living  but  the  company  has,  and  while  there  may  be  in- 
stances where  dirty  men  are  prosperous  and  excellent  me- 
chanics, they  are  rare.  Cleanliness  of  work  clothes  is  another 
item  with  which  the  health  department  may  well  concern 
itself.  Usually  if  arrangements  are  made  so  that  it  is  easy 
for  men  to  send  their  overalls  to  the  laundry  they  will  take 
advantage  of  it.  Some  wives  would  rather  have  the  five  cents 
that  this  service  costs,  but  for  the  most  part  they  can  be  de- 
pended on  to  keep  their  husbands  looking  neat.  The  worst 
man  to  handle  is  the  man  who  is  so  busy  that  he  has  no  time 
for  cleanliness. 

Corners  and  cuspidors  are  next  on  the  list.  Several  firms 
paint  the  floor  and  the  walls  at  each  corner  white,  and  put 
a  cuspidor  there.  This  is  for  two  reasons,  one  that  a  man 
does  not  like  to  be  the  first  one  to  spit  on  a  clean  spot,  second, 
that  the  cuspidor  will  show  more  plainly.  Painting  of  walls 
and  ceilings  is  a  part  of  the  job.  How  often  it  can  be  afforded 
depends  on  the  need  and  cost  of  light.  Entirely  apart  from 
the  quality  or  quantity  of  work  which  can  be  done  under 


—  231  — 

different  lighting  conditions  is  the  effect  on  the  man  himself. 
It  is  almost  impossible  to  do  fine  work  in  dirty,  crude  sur- 
roundings. There  is  a  psychological  influence  that  is  felt  by 
the  most  obtuse  person.  If  the  work  is  coarse  and  crude,  then 
there  is  little  need  of  expense  for  light.  In  a  storeroom  for 
castings  it  may  be  an  open  question  whether  to  secure  light 
by  means  of  whitewash  or  electric  lights,  but  if  the  work  at 
hand  demands  the  use  of  instruments  of  precision  there  is 
little  doubt  which  is  cheaper. 

Floors  and  windows  should  also  be  kept  clean.  Without 
supervision  floors  will  be  swept  about  once  a  week  and  win- 
dows never  washed.  In  fact,  it  is  not  absolutely  certain  that 
it  pays  to  wash  windows  in  some  places.  They  accumulate 
a  certain  amount  of  opaqueness  in  about  a  week  after  being 
washed  and  they  do  not  seem  to  get  much  dirtier  for  an  in- 
definite period.  That  is,  there  is  certain  dirt  that  will  cling 
to  glass  but  the  rest  falls  off.  Window  washing  in  a  machine 
shop  or  foundry  becomes  more  a  matter  of  pride  than  of 
profit.  The  effect  on  the  men  is  mostly  that  of  inciting  their 
pride  in  the  shop.  The  opaqueness  of  normally  dirty  windows 
is  about  the  same  as  that  of  clean  ribbed  glass  which  is  so 'much 
used,  ostensibly  to  throw  light  into  the  center  of  the  room, 
but  practically  to  prevent  the  men  from  seeing  outside  the 
shop.  Ribbed  glass  is  of  course  a  greater  accumulator  of  dirt 
than  plain  glass  and  is  also  much  harder  to  wash. 

Dirt  is  usually  defined  as  matter  out  of  place,  on  which 
score  some  machine  shop  superintendents  claim  that  their 
floors  are  not  dirty  as  what  is  on  them  belongs  there.  There 
is  a  growing  tendency  to  wash  even  machine-shop  floors. 
This  is  made  possible  by  the  change  to  concrete  floors  under 
cranes  and  where  heavy  work  is  done,  reserving  the  wood 
floors  for  places  where  the  work  is  light.  Cleanliness  in  ma- 
chine shops  is  partly  a  matter  of  sentiment  and  partly  busi- 
ness. Men  will  get  cut  and  continue  to  get  infected  wounds, 
if  cleanliness  is  not  demanded,  and  they  will  stumble  and 
fall  on  things  in  the  dark  if  there  is  not  light. 

Every  day  should  be  clean-up  day  around  the  outside  of 
the  buildings  and  in  the  yard.  Lawns  and  shrubbery  simply 
represent  cheap  and  effective  means  for  keeping  clean  certain 


—  232  — 

unused  areas.  It  is  easier  to  mow  grass  than  to  pull  weeds, 
and  it  is  much  more  effective  than  trespass  signs.  Even 
the  most  ignorant  immigrant  will  hesitate  before  dumping  a 
load  of  bricks  in  the  middle  of  a  lawn,  but  any  theory  that 
grass  and  shrubs  will  take  care  of  themselves  will  be  soon 
disproved  by  a  trial. 

Mud  is  another  expensive  enemy  to  production,  if  the  shop 
is  big  enough  to  have  more  than  one  building.  Some  shops 
dodge  the  question  by  the  use  of  underground  or  covered  and 
floored  passageways.  These,  however,  are  expensive.  Mud 
between  buildings  means  loss  of  time  from  men  picking  their 
way  around  instead  of  walking  freely;  loss  of  time  on  hand 
trucking,  and  substitution  of  teams  where  hand  trucking  would 
be  cheaper.  As  soon  as  a  firm  installs  storage-battery  trucks 
it  builds  good  roads  through  the  plant.  Horses  say  nothing 
about  cobblestones  and  mud,  and  they  eat  little  if  any  more 
when  they  are  working  hard,  but  a  storage  battery  writes  its 
own  story  of  wasted  current.  Men  do  not  protest  because 
they  do  not  expect  it  will  do  any  good,  but  the  cost  accounts 
show  plainly  what  the  men  who  have  to  work  in  mud  would 
like  to  say. 

Cleaning  machinery,  especially  the  machines  such  as  cen- 
tering machine  drill  grinders,  tool  grinders,  etc.,  that  are  used 
by  a  number  of  men,  also  comes  under  the  head  of  sanita- 
tion. Again  what  is  everybody's  business  is  nobody's  busi- 
ness. It  is  hard  to  get  a  lathe  hand  to  clean  his  machine 
when  he  sees  the  drill  grinder  cleaned  by  a  laborer.  We  are 
all  perfectly  willing  to  do  menial  work,  if  there  is  no  menial 
around  to  do  it,  but  as  soon  as  a  servant  appears  we  want  him 
to  do  .it  all.  We  all  go  camping  in  summer  and  clean  pots  and 
kettles  and  make  up  cots,  but  as  soon  as  there  is  some  one 
to  do  part  of  it  we  want  it  all  done  for  us.  But  there  is  really 
no  good  reason  why  a  man  to  whom  we  pay  80  cents  an  hour 
should  knock  off  work  an  hour  early  on  Saturday  to  clean  up, 
when  a  40-cent  man  would  be  glad  to  do  it  in  half  an  hour  if 
we  give  him  time  and  a  half.  The  time  given  in  so  many 
shops  for  each  man  to  clean  up  is  looked  on  as  a  sort  of  picnic 
or  gift  by  the  management.  It  is  harder  work  than  going  on 
with  production  would  be  and  yet  the  men  look  at  it  as  an 


—  233  — 

agreeable  change.  It  certainly  does  not  hurt  the  turnover  to 
give  it  and  yet  from  a  financial  point  of  view  it  seems  like 
paying  out  two  dollars  for  something  done  that  plenty  of  peo- 
ple would  like  to  do  for  one. 

Another  matter  very  closely  associated  with  health  and 
sanitation  in  the  shops  is  that  of  physical  examination  of  em- 
ployees, and  it  has  become  a  rapidly  growing  custom  to  fur- 
nish free  physical  examination  to  employees  upon  their  en- 
tering the  service,  and  in  some  cases  at  periodic  intervals 
afterwards.  The  theory  underlying  this  examination  is  truly 
social  and  hardly  a  matter  of  employment.  It  is  usually,  how- 
ever, linked  up  with  the  employment  service  and  for  that  rea- 
son demands  attention. 

As  a  social  precaution  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  every 
one  owes  it  to  himself,  his  friends,  and  all  with  whom  he  comes 
in  contact,  to  keep  well  and  strong  and  able  to  carry  on  with 
his  share  of  the  work  which  comes  before  him.  He  cannot 
afford  to  neglect  oncoming  disease  or  injury,  nor  can  he  right- 
fully take  any  chance  of  spreading  disease.  It  is  a  fact  that 
public  neglect  of  the  situation  has  driven  employers  into  the 
supervision  of  the  health  of  their  employees  and  has  forced 
them  to  install  hospitals,  such  as  are  shown  in  Figures  12 
and  13,  and  yet  some  will  ask,  "Why  will  an  employer  spend 
money  unless  he  does  it  for  profit?  If  he  does  it  for  profit, 
there  must  be  something  selfish  about  it."  As  a  matter  of 
fact  there  is  a  selfish  side  to  the  employer's  enthusiasm  and 
there  are  abuses  of  the  plan.  These  things,  however,  are  not 
inherent  and  can,  and  undoubtedly  will,  be  done  away  with 
when  the  public  is  fully  informed.  The  profit  to  the  em- 
ployer comes  through  the  fact  that  a  well  man  has  an  entirely 
different  attitude  toward  work  than  a  sick  man ;  his  tendency 
toward  carelessness  is  not  so  great  and  he  is  not  merely  able 
but  anxious  to  do  his  work.  It  is  the  normal  state  for  all  of 
us  to  work.  Most  of  us  can  find  work  enjoyable,  if  we  are 
strictly  fit  to  do  it,  but  a  sick  man  can  rarely  enjoy  any  kind 
of  work,  or  pleasure  either,  for  that  matter. 

The  abuse  of  the  system  is  in  the  ease  with  which  it  can 
be  used  to  hasten  the  departure  of  undesirable  men  from  the 
firm.  There  are  very  few  physically  perfect  men.  Almost  any 


—  234  — 

one  can  be  rejected  by  the  medical  department  on  some  score 
or  other.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  very  few  men  who  can- 
not pursue  some  occupation  to  great  advantage  and  build  up 
their  health  at  the  same  time.  If  the  medical  department  is 
allowed  to  reject  men  permanently,  except  for  contagious  dis- 
eases, there  will  be  a  suspicion  that  it  is  a  part  of  a  system 
of  discrimination.  Every  plant  offers  some  opportunity  for 
men  not  altogether  perfect  from  a  physical  standpoint.  A 


FIGURE  12. 


MEN'S  DISPENSARY  AT  THE  LYNN  WORKS  OP  THE  GENERAL 
ELECTRIC  COMPANY. 


steel  mill  may  be  a  bad  place  for  a  man  with  heart  trouble, 
but  every  steel  mill  has  a  repair  shop,  a  carpenter  shop,  or  an 
office  where  such  men  with  training  can  safely  work.  Tu- 
bercular men  can  work,  if  the  disease  is  arrested,  in  places 
where  great  activity  of  the  upper  part  of  the  body  or  vigor- 
ous breathing  is  not  required  and  such  jobs  are  not  scarce. 
The  old  idea  that  a  tubercular  patient  should  be  outdoors  in 
all  weather  is  discarded.  He  needs  quiet  and  rest  until  na- 
ture walls  in  the  disease,  then  he  can  live  as  the  rest  do.  Even 
victims  of  venereal  diseases,  once  cured  past  the  com- 
municable state,  should  not  be  debarred  from  work. 


—  235  — 

In  so  far  as  an  industrial  medical  department  departs  from 
the  methods  it  would  employ  if  it  were  a  public  institution  it 
is  subject  to  scrutiny  and  criticism.  It  is  really  the  advance 
agent  of  a  general  service  which  must  surely  come  as  a  result 
of  its  own  missionary  work.  Even  then,  however,  when  it 
does  become  a  public  function  to  make  physical  examinations 
there  will  be  need  of  industrial  physicians  in  each  shop  to  in- 


FIGURE  13.     HOSPITAL  OF  THE  NORTON  COMPANY. 

terpret  the  examinations  in  terms  of  the  work  to  be  done  in 
that  shop.  Unfortunately  there  are  not  at  present  great  num- 
bers of  industrial  physicians  who  can  do  this  for  their  own 
examinations.  That  is,  there  are  not  many  who  know  fully 
what  the  requirements  of  each  job  in  the  shop  may  be  in 
terms  of  physical  efficiency,  and  there  are  not  many  interview- 
ers in  employment  departments  who  can  interpret  the  med- 
ical examiner's  report  in  the  same  way.  It  would  seem,  how- 
ever, that  it  would  be  easier  for  a  doctor  to  acquire  this  tech- 
nical knowledge  than  for  the  interviewer  to  gain  an  adequate 
knowledge  of  medicine. 


—  236  — 

This  knowledge  of  the  physician  must  be  first-hand  knowl- 
edge to  have  value.  No  job  analysis  will  take  the  place 
of  actual  contact  with  the  job.  If  the  work  is  dusty  the  physi- 
cian ought  to  live  in  that  dust  for  a  time,  otherwise  he  will 
never  know  how  it  feels.  He  ought  likewise  to  go  out  into 
the  shop  and  perform  some  of  the  typical  operations  and  he 
ought  to  be  kept  posted  and  allowed  to  watch  the  new  proc- 
esses which  are  introduced.  When  the  examining  physician 
shows  by  his  conversation  that  he  is  familiar  with  the  job  for 
which  the  man  he  is  examining  is  applying,  he  can  get 
the  confidence  of  that  man.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  makes 
a  hurried,  superficial,  perfunctory  examination,  he  arouses  a 
feeling  on  the  part  of  his  patient  that  he  was  looking  for 
something  wrong  and  was  disappointed  in  not  finding  it.  The 
author  has  seen  men  passed  by  a  very  prominent  industrial 
physician  at  the  rate  of  one  every  two  minutes.  At  this  rate 
he  may  have  been  able  to  catch  the  most  serious  cases  of  men 
who  could  not  rightly  be  employed  anywhere,  but  he  could 
not  give  consideration  to  the  advisability  of  employment  in 
one  part  of  the  plant  or  another,  nor  could  he  by  any  chance 
establish  a  feeling  of  confidence  on  the  part  of  the  man  whose 
first  contact  with  the  plant  was  being  made. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 
REST  AND  RECREATION 

WE  all  want  to  live  a  long  and  useful  life,  and  the  amount 
of  work  we  do  in  a  lifetime  should  be  the  measure  of 
our  usefulness,  but  how  long  one  should  work  without  rest  de- 
pends so  much  on  the  work,  and  on  the  physical  and  mental 
condition  of  the  worker  that  it  is  impossible  to  lay  down  a  rule 
that  workers  in  some  trades  should  have  a  rest  period  but 
in  others  not.  Rest  periods  are  a  matter  for  experiment  and 
trial.  In  one  plant  it  may  be  found  beneficial  to  stop  all  work 
in  the  middle  of  the  morning,  open  the  windows  wide  and  go 
through  five  minutes  of  calesthenics.  In  another,  it  may  in- 
crease production  for  men  to  stop  work  for  a  few  minutes 
and  sit  down  and  loaf.  Or  if  it  is  found  that  a  gain  comes 
from  a  stoppage  of  work  in  which  the  men  can  get  a  drink  of 
milk,  or  eat  a  doughnut,  it  may  be  that  the  work  is  at  a  pace 
which  makes  great  demands  on  men's  strength,  or  is  monoto- 
nous, or  in  some  way  saps  their  physical  and  nervous  vitality. 
When  work  is  monotonous,  and  requires  close  and  concen- 
trated attention,  it  is  necessary  to  give  frequent  rest  periods, 
but  if  the  work  consists  in  merely  being  present  or  if  it  re- 
quires heavy  work  for  a  few  minutes  followed  by  relaxation, 
then  there  is  little  need  of  rest,  for  the  work  furnishes  its  own 
rest  periods.  In  this  connection  Figures  14  and  15  are  of  in- 
terest as  illustrating  approved  types  of  rest  rooms. 

If  the  one  who  lays  out  shop  work  has  done  that  kind  of 
work  himself  he  can  almost  always  lay  it  out  in  such  a  way 
that  it  can  be  carried  on  without  undue  fatigue  and  over  the 
usual  working  day.  Scientific  management  says,  "Keep  a  man 
at  a  machine  and  be  sure  everything  is  brought  to  him  so  that 
there  will  be  no  break  in  his  production."  Nature  says  to 

237 


—  238  — 

him,  "Cut  loose  from  this  and  do  something  different;  your 
nerves  are  not  made  of  steel  and  constantly  doing  the  same 
thing  over  and  over  will  wear  them  out."  So  he  gets  an- 
other job,  and  often  without  realizing  what  it  is  that  makes 
him  listen  to  the  attractiveness  of  the  new  job.  He  may  also 
change  jobs  in  order  to  get  a  vacation,  for  very  few  shops 
grant  vacations.  But  the  need  is  there  in  men's  minds  and 
they  take  vacations.  Usually  they  leave  their  job,  loaf  a  week 
or  two,  go  visit  some  relatives  and  come  back  and  get  another 


FIGURE  14.    A  TYPICAL  BEST  BOOM  FOE  GIRLS. 

job,  either  with  a  competitor  or  possibly  in  the  same  shop,  in 
which  case  they  explain  their  absence  on  the  ground  that, 
"Uncle  Tom  was  sick  and  I  had  to  go  in  a  hurry,"  or  some 
such  equally  inane  excuse.  If  the  man  is  needed,  the  employ- 
ment manager  accepts  the  excuse  and  takes  him  back.  Such 
practice  is  common  and  it  seems  incredible  that  employers 
do  not  respond  to  it  and  grant  vacations  in  a  regular  way. 

Vacations  in  general  seem  to  be  a  prerogative  of  the  of- 
fice. There  seems  to  be  a  theory  that  it  is  not  so  very  im- 
portant if  the  office  work  is  not  kept  right  up  to  the  mark,  or 
else  a  theory  that  office  people  can  so  organize  their  work  that 


—  239  — 

by  working  a  little  harder  they  can  catch  up  with  their  work, 
or  by  all  working  a  little  harder  they  can  do  enough  more 
work  than  usual  so  that  some  can  stay  out.  However,  if 
vacations  were  solely  for  the  purpose  of  rest,  there  would  be 
but  little  excuse  for  them. 

The  greatest  value  of  a  vacation  lies  in  the  opportunity  to 
get  out  of  ruts.  Most  of  us  inherit  the  ruts  of  the  traditions 
of  our  trades  or  professions,  but  there  is  another  way  to  get 


FIGURE  15.    A  GOOD  EXAMPLE  OP  A  MEN'S  SMOKING  BOOM. 


out  of  these  besides  throwing  up  the  job,  and  that  is  to  go 
off  for  a  ten  days'  or  two  weeks'  vacation,  forget  everything 
about  the  job,  and  get  utterly  tired  out  in  a  new  way  and 
ready  to  start  back  on  the  job  with  a  new  idea  of  our  rela- 
tions to  other  people. 

Another  reason  for  a  vacation  is  that  it  gives  both  the 
man  and  his  superiors  a  chance  to  discover  something  as  to 
the  former's  value  to  the  concern.  It  may  demonstrate  that 
he  needs  to  be  there  every  day  to  keep  his  work  going,  which 
indicates  that  he  needs  to  have  it  more  thoroughly  organized. 


—  240  — 

On  the  other  hand  it  may  be  demonstrated  that  his  being 
away  for  a  short  time  does  not  affect  his  work  at  all,  from 
which  some  short-sighted  men  may  conclude  that  he  is  not 
needed,  but  which  will  impress  the  long-headed  general  man- 
ager as  indicative  that  his  work  is  well  organized,  and  that  the 
man  is  not  afraid  to  go  away  and  leave  it  in  the  hands  of 
subordinates.  If  the  general  manager  is  the  sort  of  man  who 
will  hire  a  subordinate,  squeeze  all  he  knows  from  him,  get  him 
to  train  an  assistant  and  then  fire  him  to  save  money,  the 
whole  force  should  know  it  at  once  and  seek  employment 
elsewhere.  It  is  not,  however,  fair  to  meet  such  treatment  by 
neglecting  to  break  in  an  understudy,  or  by  failing  to  make' 
complete  reports  such  that  others  could  take  up  the  work  in 
case  of  emergency.  Two  wrongs  never  make  a  right,  and  the 
latter  action  is  at  least  as  reprehensible  as  the  former. 

Whether  vacations  are  necessary  in  the  shop  is  not  alto- 
gether clear.  If  the  labor  turnover  in  the  shop  were  as  low 
as  it  is  in  the  office,  and  there  may  be  such  places,  then  there 
would  be  good  reason  to  offer  vacations  with  pay.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  observation,  however,  the  office  turnover  may  almost 
always  be  depended  on  to  be  only  about  one-fourth  as  great 
as  in  the  shop.  If  the  ratio  is  less  it  is  because  the  shop  is 
well  conducted  and  men  like  to  stay  there,  for  office  turnover 
varies  much  less  than  that  in  the  shop.  Shops  in  which  men 
will  stay  a  year  are  rare,  but  offices  in  which  they  do  not  stay 
over  two  years  are  even  rarer.  If  men  who  come  to  work  in 
the  shop  could  be  expected  to  stay  at  least  two  years,  there 
would  probably  be  an  entirely  different  feeling  about  vaca- 
tions. As  it  is  men  get  their  vacations,  but  they  get  them 
between  jobs.  In  order  to  get  a  labor  turnover  as  low  as  100 
per  cent  it  is  necessary  that  a  considerable  fraction  of  the 
employees  have  more  than  two  different  jobs  in  the  course  of 
one  calendar  year,  for  quite  a  number  will  stay  along  year 
after  year,  no  matter  how  good  reasons  are  given  them  for 
leaving.  The  average  newcomer  in  a  100  per  cent  shop  can- 
not be  expected  to  stay  more  than  about  three  months.  Un- 
der the  circumstances,  and  seeing  that  he  is  taking  about  four 
vacations  a  year,  it  is  no  wonder  he  is  not  offered  vacations  at 
the  company's  expense. 


—  241  — 

We  must,  however,  give  some  consideration  to  what  will 
happen  if  we  are  successful  in  cutting  down  labor  turnover 
to  the  point  which  sometime  we  all  hope  to  reach.  When  men 
only  leave  for  good  reasons,  through  necessity  or  because  the 
firm  they  are  with  cannot  offer  them  the  advancement  which 
they  can  demand,  there  will  not  be  these  between- jobs  vaca- 
tions, but  there  will  be  at  least  as  great  a  need  as  ever  for  vaca- 
tions so  far  as  the  individual  employees  are  concerned.  A 
few  shops  have  met  this  need  by  closing  down  for  a  week  or 
so  during  the  very  hot  weather.  Then  every  one  who  is  not 
needed  to  paint  and  clean  and  move  machinery  goes  to  the 
seashore  or  mountains,  and  in  some  way  gets  a  little  different 
view  of  life,  and  comes  back  tired  out  physically  but  with  a 
better  feeling  than  ever  toward  the  company.  This  has  the 
drawback  of  inflexibility,  the  loss  of  production  from  idle  ma- 
chinery, and  it  is  entirely  impossible  in  lines  of  manufacture 
which  require  continuous  operation.  A  fair  test  of  this  kind 
of  vacation  occurred  at  the  time  of  the  heatless  days  dur- 
ing the  winter  of  1918,  when  many  shops  lost  very  heavily 
through  inability  to  keep  production  going.  Inasmuch  as 
most  of  the  continuous  industries  are  dependent  on  some  kind 
of  heat  treatment,  that  shutdown  affected  them  to  a  very 
large  extent,  but  probably  no  more  so  than  an  intentional  va- 
cation would  have  done. 

The  greatest  disadvantage  of  such  a  system  from  the  em- 
ployee's standpoint  is  that  every  one  goes  at  the  same  time. 
But  if  the  father's  vacation  comes  in  early  July  and  his  son's 
in  August,  the  wife  will  either  get  two  vacations  or  else  father 
and  son  will  throw  up  their  jobs  and  take  their  vacations  when 
they  want  them,  and  trust  to  luck  to  get  their  old  jobs  back 
again.  If,  however,  the  shop  has  an  established  custom  of 
shutting  down  at  a  given  period  so  that  all  who  work  there 
know  when  the  vacation  comes,  perhaps  all  the  family  may 
get  jobs  in  the  one  shop.  It  simply  comes  down  to  the  elemen- 
tary but  unheard-of  principle  that  working  for  a  firm  is  in 
itself  a  kind  of  contract,  the  terms  of  which  should  be  known 
to  both  parties  before  they  begin  and  which  should  not  be 
capable  of  change  without  the  agreement  of  both. 

Many  shops  encourage  recreation  as  a  partial  substitute 


—  242  — 

for  vacations.  For  instance,  if  there  is  a  vacant  field  near  the 
shop  large  enough  for  a  diamond,  there  will  surely  be  base- 
ball, even  if  a  daily  collection  has  to  be  taken  to  pay  for  broken 
windows.  By  and  by  there  develops  a  team  that  thinks  itself 
capable  of  making  a  showing  against  the  teams  of  another 
shop.  If  it  is  a  shade  weak  in  its  pitching  staff  there  begins 
to  be  a  mysterious  flow  to  the  employment  department  of 
men  who  have  been  bush  leaguers  or  well-known  amateurs. 
The  employment  department  is  not  concerned  with  an  ap- 
plicant's minor  failings,  and  so  soon  one  of  them  gets  a  job 
and  then  there  is  a  challenge  to  some  other  shop.  A  game  is 
played,  and  whichever  wins,  the  management  begins  to  sit 
up  and  take  notice  by  bragging  about  the  team  or  bragging 
about  the  team  they  are  going  to  have  next  year.  If  there 
is  a  real  baseball  fan  in  the  management,  which  is  almost  a 
certainty,  there  soon  comes  an  appropriation  for  uniforms  and 
for  a  field  with  backstops  and  an  infield  like  the  manager's 
front  lawn,  and  bleachers  and  dugouts  as  well  as  dressing- 
rooms  and  shower  baths.  Then  of  course  a  team  on  which  so 
much  depends  cannot  possibly  do  its  best  if  it  cannot  prac- 
tice and  even  with  the  daylight  saving, plan  in  force  it  can- 
not practice  and  get  home  at  the  same  time  the  rest  of  the 
shop  does,  so  it  gets  out,  with  full  pay,  at  four  o'clock  every 
afternoon.  Then  there  has  to  be  a  number  of  rooters,  umpires, 
and  coachers  and  a  second  team  and  a  lot  of  alternates  on  the 
field  every  afternoon,  say  somewhere  between  fifty  and  a  hun- 
dred people  all  helping  win  the  pennant.  Next  comes  the  need 
of  a  first  baseman,  and  there  is  a  fine  chap  that  can  be  had, 
but  he  does  not  know  anything  about  the  business,  so  the 
works  manager  says  he  will  find  him  something  to  do,  if  the 
employment  manager  takes  him  on,  so  he  is  hired  and  for- 
gotten all  about  except  at  practice  time  and  games  when  he 
appears  from  some  place  or  other.  Then  some  one  discov- 
ers that  the  rival  team  is  recruiting  in  the  same  way  and  a 
yell  of  "professionalism"  goes  up,  and  the  big  game  reduces 
itself  to  a  fight  between  the  professionals  of  both  sides  and 
the  management  says  that  they  never  will  do  anything  of  the 
kind  again,  and  they  do  not  until  the  next  spring. 

This  is  the  history  of  hundreds  of  shop  ball  teams.    There 


—  243  — 

are  two  alternatives,  one  to  hire  men  outright -to  play  base- 
ball and  never  expect  them  in  the  shop  nor  allow  them  there, 
the  other  to  have  a  purely  amateur  team.  The  last  is  ideal, 
but  like  many  other  ideals  not  at  all  easy  to  accomplish.  At- 
tempts to  form  ball  teams  strictly  within  the  shop  do  not  work 
out  because  a  team  made  up  of  the  best  players  is  almost  cer- 
tain to  contain  some  professionals.  They  are  legitimately 
members  of  the  force,  having  been  hired  purely  to  work  and 
not  with  any  thought  of  playing  ball.  The  mischief  seems  to 
be  done  as  soon  as  the  management  takes  hold  in  a  construc- 
tive manner.  If  it  holds  off  and  only  tells  the  ball  team  what  it 
cannot  do  in  the  name  of  the  company  there  is  a  better  chance 
of  satisfaction,  though  not  much  chance  of  a  winning  team. 
Just  as  surely  as  the  company  takes  any  part  in  the  direction 
of  the  team  it  will  have  to  take  it  all  and  it  might  as  well  have 
a  professional  team  and  charge  the  cost  up  to  the  amusement 
of  the  management. 

None  of  the  other  sports  that  are  indulged  in  by  shops 
present  these  difficulties.  Tennis  presents  only  the  cost  of 
the  courts,  which  may  run  as  high  as  $500  each  if  they  are 
made  for  experts,  and  nowadays  there  are  a  few  experts  al- 
most everywhere.  Tennis  is  not,  however,  for  the  multitude. 
It  is  a  game  which  finds  more  favor  with  office  men  than  with 
the  shop.  Football  does  not  seem  to  be  in  great  favor  partly 
because  there  is  not  a  professional  flavor  to  it,  and  largely  be- 
cause it  is  played  when  the  sun  is  setting  early  and  there  is 
no  chance  for  practice  except  on  company  time.  Furthermore 
by  the  time  the  football  season  is  on  the  management  is  too 
much  disgusted  with  sports  on  company  time  to  consider  tak- 
ing on  another. 

In  the  winter  basketball  claims  a  good  many,  especially 
if  there  is  some  place  where  a  little  practicing  can  be  done 
during  the  noon  hour.  That  brings  out  men  who  wonder  how 
it  is  possible  for  the  players  to  make  so  many  tries  for  the 
basket  and  miss,  and  so  they  shoot  a  few  and  with  gamblers' 
luck  make  them,  and  then  they  are  in  the  game  for  life  like 
the  golfer  who  hits  the  ball  on  the  nose  the  first  time.  Bas- 
ketball has  the  advantage  that  it  is  most  interesting  when 
played  between  departments,  and  the  teams  are  fairly 


—  244  — 

matched;  it  does  not  require  practice  on  company  time,  the 
equipment  is  inexpensive  and  quite  a  number  get  a  chance  to 
play  in  an  evening.  It  is  a  purely  amateur  sport  and  one  that 
has  enough  action  to  keep  the  audience  on  their  feet  half  the 
time.  Handball  has  a  few  devotees,  but  not  enough  so  that 
many  courts  are  built;  hockey  hardly  needs  the  backing  of  a 
company  and  yachting,  rowing,  etc.,  are  really  not  often  com- 
pany sports,  but  since  they  are  usually  clean,  there  is  not  much 
objection  to  the  various  organizations  or  clubs  adopting  the 
company  name. 

The  other  amusements  which  seem  to  be  creeping  into 
the  limelight  are  theatricals  and  festivals  known  by  various 
local  names.  The  latter  appear  to  be  the  outgrowth  of  pic- 
nics. At  first  the  shop  shut  down  for  a  day  and  all  hands  went 
to  some  grove  with  basket  dinners;  there  were  swings,  dancing, 
bowling,  soft  drinks  and  popcorn,  and  then  boat  races,  tub 
races  and  possibly  a  tug  of  war  between  the  married  and  sin- 
gle men,  and  also  races  of  various  and  not  too  serious  a  na- 
ture. From  that  has  developed  a  sort  of  stay-at-home  pic- 
nic on  the  company  grounds,  if  there  is  room  enough,  in  which 
there  is  a  distinct  separation  between  entertainers  and  en- 
tertained, and  spontaneity  is  omitted.  There  is  a  parade  of 
ancients  and  horribles,  with  a  prize  awarded  the  most  bizarre 
outfit,  and  a  series  of  acts  of  almost  a  vaudeville  nature,  par- 
ticipated in  by  volunteers  and  always  including  a  clown  band 
and  various  thrilling  but  fake  acts.  The  participants  always 
have  a  good  time  and  the  audience  seems  to  enjoy  it  very 
well.  If,  as  is  often  advertised,  it  is  a  long  afternoon  full  of 
surprises,  the  audience  may  get  tired  of  it  and  walk  off  in  the 
middle  of  the  performance,  but  if  the  length  is  tempered  with 
mercy  so  that  the  audience  does  not  get  to  making  compari- 
sons it  passes  for  a  success. 

These  carnivals  cost  a  great  deal  of  money,  but  they  give 
a  great  deal  of  advertising.  They  do  not  necessarily  sell  goods 
directly  but  they  keep  the  firm's  name  in  the  foreground.  They 
also  act  as  advertisements  for  help  of  the  most  effective  kind. 
Whenever  the  flow  of  applicants  into  the  employment  depart- 
ments lags  it  is  a  good  time  to  have  a  parade  or  some  other  out- 
door activity  to  which  all  the  men  in  the  neighboring  shops 


—  245  — 

can  come.  Many  of  them  will  be  around  in  the  next  two  or 
three  days  to  see  the  employment  department.  They  are  not 
quite  so  efficient  as  the  pied  piper,  but  they  act  on  much  the 
same  principle.  In  fact,  the  wives  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
it.  They  go  and  they  come  home  full  of  enthusiasm  over 
the  shop,  and  tease  their  husbands  to  go  get  a  job  in  some 
live  place  like  the  So-and-So  Company  where  they  have  a 
jazz  band  and  do  every  sort  of  thing  to  amuse  their  help  and 
their  wives  and  children. 

Then  there  are  the  orchestra  or  the  brass  band  and  the  min- 
strel show  and  the  amateur  theatricals  into  which  they  lead. 
An  orchestra  naturally  grows  out  of  the  companionship  of 
three  or  four  men  who  discover  that  each  plays  some  instru- 
ment. They  get  together  for  their  own  pleasure  at  each 
other's  houses  until  the  great  idea  strikes  them  that  they  are 
pretty  good.  Then  they  play  in  public,  perhaps  give  a  mod- 
est concert  or  play  to  the  employees  during  the  noon  hour,  or 
in  some  other  way  launch  themselves  before  the  public  and 
the  management.  They  do  well  and  then  the  management 
makes  the  fatal  step  of  admitting  it  and  encouraging  them  to 
add  to  their  number  and  give  a  series  of  concerts. 

About  this  stage  comes  the  question  of  union  regulations. 
If  there  is  to  be  a  band  it  must,  in  most  eastern  communities, 
be  a  union  band,  but  if  the  shop  is  an  open  one  it  may  object 
to  the  presence  of  a  union  band  among  its  members  though 
it  would  never  think  of  inquiring  or  objecting  if  the  individ- 
ual members  played  in  different  union  bands  evenings  and 
holidays.  After  the  band  or  orchestra  is  nicely  going  there  is 
certain  to  be  some  one  with  a  liking  for  amateur  theatricals 
who  suggests  a  modest  little  entertainment  for  the  celebration 
of  some  anniversary;  it  is  put  on  and  is  so  nearly  a  profes- 
sional performance  that  it  has  to  be  repeated.  From  that  the 
next  stage,  with  the  support  and  financial  backing  of  the  man- 
agement, is  a  show  given  in  a  hall  to  which  admission  is 
charged  and  the  profits  accrue  to  the  most  convenient  charity, 
or  for  the  benefit  of  the  pensioners  of  the  shop.  This  first  show 
may  net  a  slight  profit,  but  the  standard  is  rapidly  rising  and 
the  performance  is  so  nearly  professional  that  the  next  one 
must  be  wholly  so.  As  with  baseball  for  six  months  preced- 


—  246  — 

ing  the  next  entertainment  there  is  a  steady  flow  of  profes- 
sional and  semi-professional  men  and  women  into  the  em- 
ployment office.  The  cost  department  begins  to  keep  tabs  on 
the  lost  time  incident  to  rehearsals,  a  theater  is  hired,  profes- 
sional dressers  are  employed  to  help  in  the  make-up,  and 
everything  is  done  on  a  larger  scale  than  ever.  The  house  is 
sold  out  to  capacity  but  when  the  bills  are  all  in,  instead  of 
the  favorite  charity  receiving  a  substantial  check  there  is  a 
deficit  of  some  thousands  of  dollars. 

The  conclusions  which  the  reader  may  draw  from  all  this 
are  likely  to  be  that  when  professionalism  and  the  manage- 
ment begin  to  come  in,  the  good  of  all  these  recreations  goes 
out.  Just  for  a  moment  let  us  think,  if  we  can,  of  any  rea- 
son why  the  management  should  interest  itself  in  the  enter- 
tainment of  its  employees.  They  are  not  likely  to  lack  en- 
tertainment. Since  the  advent  of  the  movies  it  is  possible 
for  a  few  cents  to  get  all  the  thrills  that  one  can  absorb,  and 
it  is  a  very  small  community  that  does  not  offer  enough  so 
that  a  different  film  can  be  seen  every  night.  There  is  no 
need  of  seeing  company  baseball  when  it  is  just  as  easy  and 
only  a  trifle  more  expensive  to  see  professional  ball  that  is  of 
interest  to  everybody.  There  is  no  need  for  company  dances, 
because  there  is  every  opportunity  for  those  who '  want  to 
dance  to  do  so  elsewhere,  and  so  far  as  shows  are  concerned 
better  vaudeville  than  the  shop  can  offer  can  be  had  in  any 
city  of  50,000  inhabitants. 

Amateur  entertainments  are  of  value  from  a  social  stand- 
point because  of  the  personality  of  those  taking  part.  As 
soon  as  the  makeup  and  acting  are  so  good  that  the  actor's 
own  friends  do  not  know  him,  then  this  personal  side  vanishes 
and  it  becomes  simply  an  entertainment  to  which  many  peo- 
ple go  in  duty  bound  but  who  would  much  prefer  having  spent 
that  particular  evening  elsewhere.  If  it  can  be  kept  ama- 
teur, given  in  the  shop  in  some  room  cleared  for  the  purpose, 
and  followed  by  a  dance  and  a  buffet  lunch,  there  will  be  the 
gain  of  better  social  understanding  and  improved  acquaint- 
ance If  to  this  can  be  added  the  presence  of  the  leading 
members  of  the  management,  about  every  good  result  that  can 
come  from  plant  entertainment  will  be  attained. 


—  247  — 

After  all,  however,  what  the  management  wants  to  bring 
about  through  all  these  things  is  not  to  give  entertainment  to 
their  employees,  but  to  use  the  entertainment  to  bring  about 
a  better  understanding  between  their  employees  and  them- 
selves. Business  hours  give  no  opportunity,  and  it  is  only 
through  entertainments  of  this  kind  in  which  people  of  all 
parts  of  the  organization  forget  their  rank,  and  all  come  to 
a  common  level  of  companionship,  that  the  chance  comes  for 
the  management  to  prove  to  their  employees  that  they  are 
all  of  the  same  common  clay.  If  they  encourage  such  meet- 
ings and  then  stay  away  themselves  they  lose  almost  the 
whole  benefit  which  might  come  from  it. 

Besides  all  these  forms  of  recreation  there  is  still  another 
which  should  receive  consideration.  The  author  refers  to  gar- 
dens. During  the  war  nearly  all  who  could  had  a  garden,  but 
now  that  the  war  is  over  are  they  worth  keeping  up?  Do  they 
pay?  We  muot  first  of  all  admit  that  if  men  could  work  the 
same  amount  of  overtime  in  the  shop  that  they  spend  in  their 
gardens  they  would  refuse  to  keep  it  up,  unless  they  were  paid 
a  great  deal  more  than  they  make  out  of  their  gardens.  Or 
to  put  it  another  way,  if  they  had  to  pay  as  much  for  their 
vegetables  as  they  would  cost  if  they  had  to  pay  shop  rates 
for  the  labor,  they  would  think  they  were  robbed,  and  they 
would  be  right.  There  may  be  exceptional  market  gardeners 
who  would  make  more  money  in  that  business  but  who  like 
to  work  in  a  shop,  but  they  are  few  and  far  between  and  they 
are  only  the  exception  that  proves  the  rule.  So  it  may  be  ac- 
cepted that  a  small  garden  is  not  a  money  making  venture. 
But  we  also  must  admit  that  every  shop  has  men  and  women 
who  like  to  work  in  a  garden  just  as  others  like  to  tinker  over  a 
motor  boat.  For  this  reason  gardens  should  really,  except  as 
a  war  measure,  be  classed  as  recreation. 

Like  all  other  recreational  matters  gardens  cease  to  func- 
tion if  they  are  not  left  pretty  freely  to  the  gardeners.  The 
company  may  contribute  quite  a  bit  to  their  maintenance,  and 
probably  will,  but  it  must  not  be  too  visible.  If  there  is  a 
suitable  plot  of  land  accessible  and  belonging  to  the  company, 
there  is  pretty  sure  to  be  a  request  for  its  use.  In  fact,  it 
seems  to  be  accepted  by  both  employer  and  employee  that 


—  248  — 

such  land  should  be  contributed  for  this  use.  The  firm  can 
well  afford  to  do  it,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  stabilizes 
the  labor  turnover  among  those  who  take  up  the  land.  It  is 
not  unusual  to  find  that  the  labor  turnover  among  gardeners 
is  only  one  or  two  per  cent  of  that  among  the  general  run  of 
help.  There  seems  to  be  something  about  a  garden  that 
makes  a  man  want  to  watch  it  grow. 

Of  course  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  employees  of  any 
shop  want  any  one  form  of  recreation.  There  will  be  more 
gardeners  than  tennis  players  and  fewer  than  there  are  base- 
ball fans.  If  10  per  cent  of  the  male  forces  want  gardens,  it 
is  about  normal ;  if  more  want  them,  there  is  probably  an  eco- 
nomic force  back  of  it.  This  10  per  cent  will  go  at  their  gar- 
dens in  very  haphazard  fashion,  unless  there  is  some  leader- 
ship. One  will  plant  beet  seeds  six  inches  deep  and  another 
will  put  beans  on  the  surface,  but  if  the  shop  management 
sees  this  inefficiency  and  attempts  to  eliminate  it  more  harm 
than  good  will  be  the  result,  for  then  the  men  will  lay  down 
on  the  company  and  blame  it  for  any  lack  of  rain  or  sunlight. 
If,  however,  the  company  keeps  its  hands  off,  but  suggests  to 
a  few  of  the  gardeners  that  organization  is  a  good  thing,  then 
after  they  have  blundered  through  a  season,  they  will  likely 
get  together  and  form  an  organization  that  will  buy  fertilizer 
by  the  carload  and  seed,  tools,  and  everything  else  at  whole- 
sale. They  will  learn  that  it  is  better  to  agree  with  the  rest 
for  the  sake  of  the  money  saving  and  this  for  many  will  be 
their  first  lesson  in  cooperation.  Then  they  will  get  some  one 
of  their  number,  or  some  man  from  a  nearby  agricultural  col- 
lege or  a  farm  bureau,  to  give  them  lectures  all  through  the 
winter  on  planting  and  cultivating  and  spraying,  etc.  They 
may  come  to  the  company  for  credit,  though  it  is  better  if 
they  contribute  toward  the  seed  fund  and  the  fertilizer  fund 
through  the  winter.  It  may  be,  of  course,  that  the  purchas- 
ing agent  by  writing  on  the  company  letter-head  can  get  them 
better  prices  on  their  purchases  than  they  can  get  them- 
selves. Experience  seems  to  indicate,  however,  that  the  less 
dealings  of  a  financial  nature  they  have  with  the  company 
they  work  for  the  larger  number  there  are  that  will  take  up 
gardens  and  go  through  with  it.  It  is  even  better  that  they 


—  249  — 

should  go  to  some  one  else  to  get  the  land  plowed  and  har- 
rowed, even  though  the  firm's  horses  are  eating  their  heads  off 
in  the  barn. 

There  is  more  danger  that  too  large  gardens  will  be  given 
and  planted  than  too  small.  When  the  land  is  freshly  plowed 
and  harrowed  it  is  very  easy  to  put  in  seed,  but  when  July 
comes  and  weeds  grow  several  times  as  fast  as  the  vegetables, 
and  when  the  sun  is  hot,  and  the  garden  gets  large,  then 
there  is  danger  that  men  will  discover  they  undertook  too 
much  and  will  neglect  their  work  and  let  the  weeds  win. 
From  3COO  to  4000  square  feet  is  enough  for  any  one  man  to 
try  to  cultivate  alone,  if  he  is  going  to  raise  the  usual  run  of 
vegetables  for  his  own  table.  If  he 'plants  potatoes  he  can 
usually  handle  twice  the  area.  If  he  puts  in  sweet  corn  he 
can  also  easily  handle  more,  but  he  will  raise  more  than  one 
family  can  eat.  It  is  unusually  better  for  each  one  to  raise 
all  the  different  vegetables  he  wants  rather  than  for  each  to 
specialize  and  then  exchange.  Since  gardens  are  a  form  of  rec- 
reation there  is  need  of  as  much  variety  as  possible,  so  even 
though  it  is  more  efficient  for  men  to  specialize  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  most  efficient  garden  in  point  of  production  is 
the  most  effective. 

The  best  location  is,  of  course,  one  which  is  nearby  the 
men's  homes.  If  there  are  city  gardens  near  a  man's  house 
he  should  not  be  the  subject  of  too  much  pressure  to  join  with 
the  others  in  gardens  near  the  shop.  There  is  too  much  of  this 
kind  of  pressure,  whether  it  is  brought  in  play  to  have  gar- 
dens or  to  play  baseball.  It  is  a  great  temptation  for  base- 
ball cranks,  for  example,  to  decry  the  selfishness  of  men  who 
prefer  to  do  their  duty  to  their  wives  and  children  to  playing 
ball.  These  men  have  a  right  to  spend  their  leisure  hours  in 
the  kind  of  recreation  that  appeals  to  them  and  they  ought  to 
be  praised  for  sacrificing  the  kind  of  fun  they  enjoyed  before 
they  v/ere  married  for  the  kind  that  is  of  profit  and  interest  to 
their  families. 

There  is  undoubtedly  a  great  gain  from  men  having  their 
gardens  together.  There  is  the  incentive  of  rivalry  and  of  pride 
in  a  well-kept  garden,  but  it  can  be  overdone.  The  man  with 
a  little  garden  in  his  own  back  yard  may  find  just  the  same  or 


—  250  — 

greater  incentive  in  the  admiration  of  his  family  or  his  neigh- 
bors, and  he  may  take  away  prizes  from  others  in  the  gen- 
eral gardens.  It  is  fairly  safe  to  say  that  gardens  so  situated 
that  they  add  a  mile  to  the  trip  to  and  from  the  shop  are  not 
successful  as  vegetable  gardens.  They  are  all  right  for  pota- 
toes, since  some  friend  with  a  car  will  bring  the  crop  home, 
but  no  one  wants  to  tramp  a  mile  for  a  handful  of  lettuce,  a 
bunch  of  beets,  or  a  peck  of  string  beans. 

As  a  v/hole,  these  gardens  in  the  hands  of  amateurs  form 
an  inexpensive  form  of  recreation  which  appeals  to  a  substan- 
tial percentage  of  workers.  They  help  to  cut  down  labor  turn- 
over by  giving  the  men  an  additional  tie  to  the  shop,  and  this 
is  legitimate  because  it  makes  it  profitable  to  stay,  in  dis- 
tinction from  things  which  make  it  a  loss  to  leave. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
FINANCIAL  RELATIONS  AND  LABOR  TURNOVER 

THERE  are  a  multitude  of  reasons  why  men  leave  one 
shop  to  go  to  another.  Some  are  legitimate,  some  imag- 
inary, and  some  foolish,  but  the  most  prominent  ones  center 
around  the  question  of  wages  and  hours.  Workmen  have 
nothing  to  sell  except  their  services.  Custom  has  wedded  us 
to  the  thought  that  wages  are  compensation  for  time  spent, 
which  is  a  mischievous  idea  for  there  are  few  jobs  in  which 
wages  are  paid  for  bodily  presence  only.  Most  wages  are  paid 
to  those  who  actually  carry  on  production,  or  to  those  who 
help  to  keep  it  going.  The  real  unit  therefore  is  the  unit  of 
production,  and  is  not  convertible  to  units  of  time,  even  though 
we  pretend  to  do  so.  The  daily  unit  is  necessary  because  men 
must  recuperate  once  a  day.  If  it  were  possible  to  do  other- 
wise we  would  have  men  who  would  want  to  work  twenty-four 
hours  and  then  rest  forty-eight.  It  is  also  cut  into  weekly 
units  because  of  the  sensible  and  scriptural  injunction  which 
affects  the  majority  of  male  workers.  The  fact  still  remains 
that  what  we  are  concerned  about  is  not  tonnage  per  hour 
but  tonnage  per  day  or  per  week. 

The  men  who  accomplish  things  are  the  men  whose  minds 
are  on  their  jobs  all  the  time.  Such  men  overhear  a  chance 
remark  at  a  ball  game  which  sets  them  thinking  about  some- 
thing which  aids  production.  They  are  called  absent-minded, 
which  means  that  their  minds  are  engaged  in  some  better  oc- 
cupation than  that  of  the  friends  who  criticize  them.  Large 
production  is  entitled  to  large  rewards  regardless  of  the  length 
of  time  consumed.  One  man  may  have  a  slow  but  certain  gait 
which  he  can  keep  up  for  long  hours,  his  home  surroundings 
may  be  such  that  he  is  happier  in  the  shop  than  at  home. 

251 


—  252  — 

• 

Why  should  he  not  be  paid  for  what  he  produces  and  allowed 
to  work  as  long  as  he  desires?  Another  man  works  more  rap- 
idly, perhaps  he  lets  his  brain  help  his  hands,  and  he  does  an 
equally  large  amount  of  work,  but  he  is  completely  exhausted 
at  the  end  of  seven  hours.  Why  should  he  be  induced  to 
spread  this  work  over  ten  hours?  Why  not  pay  him  for  what 
he  accomplishes  and  then  let  him  stop?  Some  men  want 
leisure  for  an  avocation,  but  many  would  be  willing  to  speed 
up,  for  the  sake  of  an  extra  hour  or  two  of  their  own. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  non-financial  rewards  of 
labor  but  a  study  of  the  reasons  which  men  give  for  leaving 
any  given  shop  will  almost  certainly  show  that  the  prospect 
of  earning  more  money  is  the  largest  factor.  But  is  this  labor 
turnover  due  to  higher  wage3  in.  other  shops  to  be  taken  as  a 
reliable  index  of  the  state  of  wages  in  our  own?  Probably  it 
is,  if  at  the  same  time  there  is  considered  the  number 'of  the 
men  who  come  back  from  these  other  shops  wiser  than  when 
they  went  away.  If  men  go  and  do  not  come  back,  it  gen- 
erally means  that  they  have  found  a  better  job.  If  a  consider- 
able number  of  men  come  back  after  having  gone  out  looking 
for  higher  wages,  and  if  they  come  back  without  further  finan- 
cial inducements,  then  it  is  safe  to  say  that  wages  are  high 
enough.  This  does  not  mean  that  everything  about  the  con- 
cern is  right.  It  simply  means  that  the  employees  realize  their 
need  for  money  well  enough  so  they  are  not  looking  for  changes 
on  that  one  account. 

While  methods  of  paying  for  work  are  not  of  the  impor- 
tance that  we  have  tried  to  make  them  out  to  be  in  the  past, 
it  is  nevertheless  well  to  briefly  consider  them.  The  different 
methods  seem  to  be  variations  of:  (1)  hourly  rate;  (2)  yearly 
salary;  (3)  premium;  (4)  task  and  bonus;  (5)  piece  work. 

The  hourly  rate  is  the  most  pernicious  of  all  and  the  least 
productive  of  friendly  feelings  between  employer  and  em- 
ployee. It  is  also  by  far  the  most  used.  It  implies,  if  it  does 
not  prove,  that  the  employer  confesses  that  he  does  not  know 
how  much  work  a  man  ought  to  do,  but  prefers  to  take  a 
chance,  rather  than  to  set  a  definite  task  or  to  agree  to  a  defi- 
nite price.  In  other  words  he  bets  that  his  employees  know 
less  about  it  than  he  does. 


A  yearly  salary  is  justifiable  only  when  the  employee  is 
engaged  in  originating  something — ideas,  usually.  A  man  who 
is  really  on  the  job  twenty-four  hours  a  day  deserves  a  salary 
and  any  man  who  would  work  at  the  same  job  without  a  salary 
if  he  could,  deserves  one.  In  fact,  in  any  case  where  the  worker 
has  his  heart  in  his  work  he  should  have  a  salary.  It  is,  how- 
ever, a  most  unbusiness-like  thing  to  accept  a  salary,  for  the  re- 
cipient throws  away  one  of  the  greatest  incentives  of  his  growth 
when  he  accepts  it.  When  a  man  is  working  at  piece  rates  his 
income  automatically  increases  as  he  grows  more  expert  and 
capable,  whether  it  is  feeding  punch  presses  or  selling  them. 
But  when  he  accepts  a  salary  he  places  himself  where  his  em- 
ployer can  only  guess  his  value  by  reason  of  the  offers  which 
he  gets  to  go  elsewhere.  He  no  longer  has  a  gage  by  which 
to  discover  whether  he  is  growing  or  shrinking,  and  he  be- 
comes the  victim  of  opinion,  which  is  formed  by  impressions 
which  the  employer  receives  from  fellow  workers  and  others. 

The  premium  system  confesses  immediately  to  a  doubt  as 
to  what  a  workman  can  or  should  do.  It  virtually  says  to 
the  man,  "You  know  that  I  am  human  and  that  I  would  not 
let  you  earn  over  $5  a  day  at  piece  rates,  but  here  is  a  scheme 
by  which  I  will  only  take  away  from  you  one-half  of  what  you 
earn  in  excess  of  your  daily  rate."  After  a  while  workmen 
come  to  see  it  in  this  light,  therefore  its  use  is  not  widespread. 

Task  and  bonus  recognizes  the  fact  that  we  have  talked 
hourly  rates  so  long  that  everybody  makes  comparisons  by 
that  method.  Therefore  it  pays  men  by  the  hour,  but  if  they 
do  more  than  a  given  "stent"  it  pays  them  an  extra  bonus 
which  may  or  may  not  be  in  proportion  to  production.  As 
a  half-way  measure  toward  the  right  thing  both  premium  and 
task  and  bonus  systems  have  great  merit. 

Piece  work  has  been  abused  so  much  and  hi  such  an  open 
spirit  of  meanness,  that  while  it  has  all  the  virtues  that  we 
can  require,  it  is  very  hard  to  reestablish  in  many  places  which 
need  it.  Its  two  faults  are,  or  have  been,  the  setting  of  rates 
while  in  complete  ignorance  of  how  much  work  could  be  done 
in  a  day  or  a  year,  and  cutting  of  rates  when  this  ignorance 
proved  costly.  Really  the  first  was  the  only  fault,  the  second 
came  through  self-preservation. 


—  254  — 

A  piece  rate  based  on  past  performance  under  an  hourly 
rate  has  no  scientific  value.  That  method  of  setting  rates  has 
made  the  stop  watch  something  despised  by  workmen,  and 
a  laughing  stock  for  the  few  who  have  endeavored  to  get  at 
a  true  rate.  Almost  every  repetitive  job  in  a  manufacturing 
establishment  can  be  divided  into  the  actual  work  done,  which 
it  is  easy  to  calculate  from  the  drawing,  and  the  time  spent 
and  wasted  in  looking  for  the  tools,  rigging,  etc.,  with  which  to 
do  it,  and  in  making  necessary  adjustments.  Whenever  piece- 
work rates  are  set  and  the  workmen  have  a  true  belief  that 
the  firm  will  maintain  them,  no  matter  how  much  they  may 
earn,  there  is  an  immediate  demand  for  tools  and  equipment 
which  will  allow  them  to  make  big  money.  It  will  surprise 
almost  any  shop  superintendent  to  take  any  single  job  in  his 
shop  and  discover  how  large  a  proportion  of  the  time  of  his  so- 
called  producers  is  spent  in  hunting  for  things  which  should 
be  at  his  elbow.  One  shop  which  has  a  most  excellent  name 
for  efficiency  discovered  that  its  20  gangs  of  erectors  had 
only  one  tap  wrench  of  a  size  which  all  needed.  At  least 
one  man  was  spending  all  his  time  hunting  for  or  waiting  for 
that  wrench. 

Successful  use  of  piece  rates  can  only  be  expected  when 
the  rates  are  set  after  definite  experiment  has  shown  how  long 
it  actually  takes  to  do  the  operation  under  consideration,  the 
wasted  time  reduced  to  a  reasonable  and  computable  limit 
and  assurance  given  and  lived  up  to  that  rate  once  set  will  be 
maintained,  no  matter  if  the  workman  in  question  makes  more 
than  his  boss.  -It  is  very  easy  to  compute  how  long  it  takes  to 
drill  a  given  hole  at  a  certain  number  of  revolutions  per  min- 
ute and  a  definite  feed.  It  is  easy  to  compute  the  time  re- 
quired to  plane  a  certain  area  with  a  definite  overrun  and  a 
known  cutting  and  return  speed  and  feed.  It  is  easy  to  find 
out  how  long  it  takes  to  put  the  piece  to  be  drilled  in  a  jig  and 
take  it  out  again,  or  how  long  it  takes  to  put  the  part  to  be 
planed  in  a  holder  and  level  it  up,  but  it  is  impossible  to  figure 
how  long  it  will  take  John  Jones  to  find  a  dozen  castings  to  be 
drilled,  find  a  helper  to  take  them  to  his  machine  and  then 
hunt  up  the  foreman  and  find  out  what  size  hole  is  needed, 
where,  and  how  deep.  That  is,  piece  rates  are  only  applicable 


—  255  — 

to  such  cases  as  are  definitely  and  accurately  studied,  in  other 
words  to  cases  where  the  employer  can  give  his  subordinate 
correct  instructions  and  know  that  they  can  be  followed  out. 
When  the  worker  is  an  expert  who  knows  more  about  the  job 
than  the  boss,  when  scientific  accuracy  is  not  present,  then  day 
rates  or  some  of  the  compromise  methods  are  best. 

It  is,  however,  an  admission  of  ignorance  or  incompetence 
on  the  part  of  the  management  to  be  in  such  a  position  that 
routine  work  cannot  be  put  on  a  satisfactory  piece-rate  basis. 
It  has  been  necessary  in  almost  every  place  where  scientific 
piece  rates  have  been  installed  to  take  away  from  the  foremen 
the  function  of  leadership,  and  reduce  him  to  the  standing 
of  a  disciplinarian.  The  great  majority  of  present-day  foremen 
do  not  know  how  to  originate  ways  of  doing  work  adaptable 
to  the  machinery  and  tools  available  for  the  job.  They  can 
only  do  what  they  did  in  "the  old  shop."  It  has  been  found 
necessary  to  make  up  a  planning  department  for  which  old 
foremen  have  seldom  been  found  suited.  In  fact,  it  seems  as 
though  the  problem  of  what  to  do  with  the  foremen  who  are 
obstructing  production  in  our  shops  to-day  is  going  to  be  one 
of  the  great  problems  which  must  be  solved  before  the  simple 
and  rational  straight  piece  rate  is  a  complete  success. 

As  a  method  of  distributing  wages  the  time-honored  pay 
envelope  and  the  check  are  running  a  race,  with  the  check 
in  favor  in  large  establishments.  The  proportionate  expense 
of  distributing  each  week's  pay  envelopes  is  lower  in  a  large 
establishment  than  in  a  small,  but  the  aggregate  is  large 
enough  to  draw  attention  to  it  as  a  cost  which  can  be  re- 
duced. A  check  can  be  written  in  less  time  than  is  required 
to  put  money  in  an  envelope,  and  checks  can  be  verified  if  they 
do  not  add  up  to  the  correct  total  more  easily  than  envelopes 
can  be  emptied  and  the  money  counted.  Opposed  to  the  ques- 
tion of  cost  is  put  the  feeling  of  the  workmen,  which  is  very 
naturally  in  favor  of  the  pay  envelope  and  against  the  check. 
Comparatively  few  workmen  have  accounts  in  banks  which 
handle  checks.  None  of  them  wish  to  deposit  the  whole 
amount  in  a  savings  bank,  and  the  savings  bank  will  seldom 
cash  a  check  for  the  sake  of  the  dollar  or  two  deposit  which 
workmen  may  make.  Again  they  have  only  the  noon  hour  in 


—  256  — 

which  to  go  to  the  bank  and  get  their  money.  They  find  a 
crowd  there  and  are  lucky  to  get  away  in  time  to  get  back  to 
work  on  time,  to  say  nothing  of  losing  their  lunch.  They  look 
on  it  as  a  scheme  by  which  the  company  dodges  the  state  law 
compelling  it  to  pay  off  on  company  time.  They  lose  on  an 
average  at  least  half  an  hour  a  week  standing  in  line  to  get 
actual  money  to  spend,  which  is  not  merely  loss  of  time  but 
is  uncomfortable.  Just  what  effect  this  has  on  labor  turn- 
over is  unknown.  It  may  be  the  one  deciding  reason  why  a 
man  leaves,  the  last  straw  so  to  speak,  but  it  is  not  at  all  likely 
to  be  a  fundamental  one  and  among  men  who  do  leave  shops 
where  checks  are  used  it  is  practically  never  given  as  the  rea- 
son for  leaving. 

There  is  a  method  of  cashing  checks  that  is  likely  to  be  an 
unknown  one  by  the  time  this  book  is  printed  and  that  is  at 
the  saloons.  Whether  it  will  be  possible  to  pay  in  checks  when 
the  saloons  are  closed  is  a  question  which  can  be  answered 
only  when  they  are  out  of  business.  It  was  undoubtedly 
profitable  for  the  saloons  to  cash  checks,  as  a  man  with  a  pocket 
full  of  money  is  much  more  likely  to  spend  it  freely  than  a 
man  with  only  a  little.  If  the  savings  banks  could  only  get 
away  from  traditional  hours,  and  other  limitations,  and  con- 
sent to  make  money  when  there  is  money  to  be  made  they 
might  also  assist  in  making  men 'thrifty.  The  same  persuasive 
powers  that  will  make  a  man  set  up  the  drinks  for  his  friends 
will  at  least  increase  the  amount  of  his  savings.  A  bank 
which  would  cash  checks  after  working  hours  could  easily 
make  it  a  condition  that  a  deposit  of  at  least  $1.00  per  week 
should  be  made  without  stopping  the  flow  of  checks  this  way. 
Many  banks  are  open  one  evening  a  week  for  deposits,  but 
they  will  usually  refuse  to  cash  checks  or  do  ajiything  else  that 
can  be  claimed  as  obliging.  If  saloons  had  run  on  bank  hours 
and  had  been  as  disobliging  there  would  have  been  no  prohibi- 
tion amendment  for  none  would  have  been  needed. 

A  reasonably  low  labor  turnover  can  only  be  obtained 
where  it  is  more  pleasant  for  the  employees  to  stay  than  to 
leave.  They  may  not  leave,  and  usually  do  not,  until  the 
disagreeable  features  of  a  job  overbalance  the  agreeable  ones. 
It  may  be  the  size  of  the  lockers,  it  may  be  the  dust  in  a  shop, 


—  257  — 

or  the  dampness  of  the  floors,  or  it  may  be  one  of  a  thousand 
little  annoyances  no  one  of  which  is  an  excuse  for  moving,  but 
which  altogether  make  it  seem  that  the  next  job  that  is  of- 
fered is  better.  The  method  of  distributing  pay  envelopes, 
or  checks,  if  those  are  used,  is  another  one  of  these  small  items 
which  are  so  important.  When  the  shop  is  small  and  the 
owner  is  superintendent,  manager,  and  treasurer  all  in  one, 
then  it  is  natural  for  him  to  put  up  the  payroll  in  the  en- 
velopes and  then  distribute  them  himself.  When  the  shop 
grows,  he  hires  a  bookkeeper  and  turns  the  payroll  over  to 
him.  After  a  while  the  bookkeeper  finds  the  tramp  around 
the  shop  irksome,  he  has  not  the  interest  of  the  owner  and 
he  sees  the  job  only  as  a  long,  unnecessary  tramp.  He  then 
has  a  little  window  cut  through  the  office  wall  next  to  a  pas- 
sageway through  which  the  men  can  go  as  they  leave  the 
shop.  He  can  then  sit  on  a  stool  and  pass  out  the  envelopes. 
If  the  men  file  by  in  numerical  or  alphabetical  order  he  can 
arrange  his  envelopes  accordingly  and  speed  the  line  past  the 
window  at  a  rapid  pace. 

This  is  efficient,  if  all  we  look  at  is  efficiency  of  distribu- 
tion, but  if  we  consider  the  effect  in  the  shop  it  may  be  quite 
otherwise.  When  the  proprietor  went  out  in  the  shop  with 
his  handful  of  envelopes  he  called  every  one  by  name,  and  if 
any  one  stopped  to  ask  a  question  he  answered  it.  If  there 
is  a  time  when  two  people  can  get  close  together  it  is  when 
they  eat  together,  or  when  one  settles  his  obligations  to  the 
other.  The  psychological  time  in  the  shop  for  unifying  the 
organization  is  payday,  but  it  cannot  be  done  through  a  hole 
in  the  wall  which  discloses  nothing  but  the  cashier's  necktie. 
Probably  very  few  men  would  stay  on  a  job  a  longer  or  a 
shorter  time  because  of  the  way  the  pay  envelope  is  handed 
out,  but  the  management  can  get  much  nearer  to  a  correct 
understanding  of  the  feeling  in  the  shop  through  a  cashier  or 
a  paymaster  who  each  payday  goes  around  the  shop. 

Unfortunately  there  are  many  managers  who  are  so  puffed 
up  with  their  success  that  they  claim  that  they  reached  their 
present  positions  alone  and  without  help.  Their  acquaint- 
ances, however,  could  tell  a  different  story.  Such  men  are 
like  ostriches  who  run  and  hide  their  heads  in  the  sand  to 


—  258  — 

avoid  disaster.  They  bury  themselves  in  their  offices  away 
from  the  friends  who  would  give  them  the  most  help.  When 
the  paymaster  reports  black  looks  and  sullen  acceptance  of 
pay  envelopes  it  is  certain  that  production  will  not  long  be 
maintained.  Long  before  that  stage  is  reached  there  should 
have  been  a  change.  A  shop  full  of  beaten  men  is  not  profit- 
able. A  shop  which  is  not  making  profit  enough  to  grant  its 
men  all  the  rights  to  pursue  happiness  that  other  shops  do  is 
either  not  getting  enough  for  its  goods  or  it  is  a  superfluous 
shop  and  should  be  wiped  out.  It  is  worth  real  money  to  the 
management  to  have  information  as  to  the  feeling  in  the  shop. 
All  the  foremen  and  superintendents,  and  all  the  paid  spies 
and  detectives  in  the  world  cannot  find  out  as  much  in  their 
way  as  will  come  freely  to  the  cashier  who  circulates  through 
the  shop.  In  the  first  place  he  represents  the  management 
from  a  different  angle  than  the  foreman.  Furthermore,  the 
cashier  is  almost  always  closer  to  the  management  than  the 
foreman  and  the  men  feel  it.  The  foreman  may  be  friendly, 
but  not  officially,  for  officially  they  are  enemies,  and  so  is  the 
superintendent. 

If  the  paymaster  is  to  be  a  diplomatic  envoy  from  the  man- 
agement he  must  look  the  part.  He  must  be  a  man's  man, 
and  look  and  act  as  though  he  were  in  the  confidence  of  the 
head  office,  and  he  cannot  do  that  long  unless  he  really  is.  He 
should  be  a  man  who  remembers  names.  He  should  know 
whom  to  call  Mike  and  whom  to  call  Mr.  Smith.  He  should 
remember  who  has  had  a  baby  and  who  has  buried  a  relative. 
He  should  not  stop  to  chat,  but  he  should  have  a  cheery  word 
for  as  many  men  as  possible  if  nothing  more  than  a  "Hello." 
He  should  be  quick  and  active  so  that  men  will  not  be  kept 
waiting,  and  yet  he  should  not  appear  nervous  and  hurried. 

The  method  of  paying,  however,  is  but  a  small  item  con- 
nected with  the  financial  relation  of  employer  and  employee. 
Of  course  a  purely  business  relation  with  employees  calls  for 
the  payment  to  them  of  their  wages  when  earned,  and  in- 
difference as  to  what  use  they  make  of  their  money.  But  if 
the  firm  has  facilities  which  it  can  share  with  its  employees, 
without  expense  to  itself,  it  should  do  so  for  it  will  taus  obtain 
the  good  will  of  its  men.  Such  things  as  allowing  employees 


—  259  — 

to  use  vacant  land  for  gardens,  using  their  purchasing  power 
to  secure  low  rates  on  groceries,  and  ability  to  build  houses 
cheaply,  if  extended  to  employees,  help  make  the  firm  more 
friendly  in  the  eyes  of  workmen,  and  undoubtedly  help  to 
hold  men. 

Has  a  firm  better  facilities  for  loaning  money  than  men 
have  for  obtaining  it  themselves?  The  answer  must  be  "Yes," 
and  for  a  number  of  reasons:  one  that  the  firm  can  borrow 
money  at  lower  rates  than  the  men,  another  that  it  has  a  bet- 
ter opportunity  to  know  who  wants  money  for  a  legitimate 
purpose,  again  because  it  is  borrowing  money  from  its  em- 
ployees all  the  time  without  interest.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  to  add  to  the  relation  of  employer  and 
employee  that  of  borrower  and  lender  has  its  elements  of 
temptation  to  abuse.  This  may  be  on  either  side.  If  a 
workman  is  so  heavily  in  debt  to  his  employer  that  he  does 
not  dare  throw  up  his  job,  there  is  the  temptation  to  at  least 
defer  increases  in  pay  which  might  be  otherwise  forthcom- 
ing. However,  this  is  no  worse  than  the  temptation  which 
comes  to  the  employer  who  discovers,  through  also  being  a 
director  in  a  bank,  that  some  subordinate  is  having  financial 
difficulties.  It  is  easily  avoided  if  the  placing  of  loans  is  done 
by  another  department  than  the  one  which  has  to  do  with 
wage  increases. 

The  second  item,  that  the  firm  is  in  a  position  to  know 
whether  or  not  its  employees  wish  money  for  legitimate  pur- 
poses, is  true  only  if  the  employment  department  is  organ- 
ized to  know  all  about  the  men  on  the  payroll.  If  a  man 
wants  to  build  a  house  and  has  anything  at  all  to  offer  as  a 
first  payment,  has  a  job  which  can  be  made  permanent,  and 
is  in  good  enough  health  to  take  out  life  insurance,  he  is  a 
fairly  safe  risk.  If  the  man's  need  of  money  grows  out  of 
sickness,  either  his  own  or  of  his  family,  his  employer  is  in 
much  the  best  position  to  know  whether  he  is  getting  ade- 
quate medical  attention.  Many  times  it  is  cheaper  in  the 
long  run  for  the  firm  to  hire  a  good  specialist  than  to  leave 
the  man  to  the  care  of  his  family  physician,  and  yet  the  man 
himself  simply  could  not  stand  the  expense  of  the  specialist, 
because  his  credit  is  not  good  enough  to  borrow  the  money 


—  260  — 

except  at  usurious  rates.  This  may  seem  paternal,  but  when 
a  man  is  sick  he  is  more  or  less  of  a  baby  and  he  welcomes  the 
kind  of  paternalism  that  puts  him  in  an  independent  position. 

The  loans  which  are  called  for  range  from  the  "dollar  until 
pay  day"  to  thousands  of  dollars  to  build  a  house.  The  man 
who  is  always  a  dollar  or  two  short  the  day  before  payday 
is  laying  the  foundation  for  thriftlessness.  He  may  be  of  the 
type  that  hates  to  get  into  debt  and  who  would  rather  obtain 
a  few  dollars  from  several  chums  than  to  go  somewhere  and 
borrow  ten  dollars  and  feel  at  peace  with  the  world.  Again 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  loan  sharks  greatly  discourage 
men  from  borrowing  in  a  businesslike  way.  There  are  very 
few  places  where  a  man  who  needs  a  sum  of  money  under  a 
hundred  dollars  can  get  it  without  paying  much  above  the 
legal  rates  for  it.  The  firms  which  advertise  low  rates  to 
workingmen  usually  succeed  in  making  up  charges  for  imag- 
inary services  and  charge  interest  in  advance  so  that  the  real 
rate  is  excessive. 

How  then  can  employers  afford  to  enter  this  competition 
so  far  as  their  own  men  are  concerned?  And  how  can  they 
loan  money  at  rates  which  make  the  transaction  a  business 
one?  A  great  majority  of  shops  pay  weekly,  but  they  hold 
back  some  money.  If,  for  example,  they  pay  off  on  Wednes- 
day afternoon  they  owe  their  men  six  and  one-half  days'  pay. 
The  interest  on  this  six  and  one-half  days'  pay  at  six  per  cent 
is.  39  per  cent  of  one  day's  pay.  If  the  payroll  is  $10,000  a 
day  the  money  held  back  is  $65,000  and  the  interest  on  it, 
which  is  what  the  men  lose,  is  $3900  per  year.  If  the  com- 
pany should  through  loaning  money  to  its  employees  lose 
$3900  per  year  in  bad  notes,  expenses,  etc.,  it  would  still  break 
even.  A  $10,000  a  day  payroll  just  at  present  means  a  shop 
with  a  little  more  than  2000  employees;  a  fund  of  $3900  for 
making  small  loans  in  a  shop  of  that  size  would  be  ample  to 
supply  all  legitimate  calls  for  loans.  The  exception  to  this 
is  in  the  matter  of  real  estate  and  there  it  is  seldom  necessary 
for  the  firm  to  advance  any  money  but  only  to  loan  its  credit 
by  a  guarantee  of  steady  employment. 

If  a  firm  makes  arrangements  to  advance  money  to  men 
in  this  way  it  is  only  reverting  to  the  old  way,  when  the  owner 


—  261  — 

was  his  own  cashier  and  went  around  with  a  box  of  pay  en- 
velopes in  his  hands,  distributing  the  money  himself  and 
hearing  all  the  hard-luck  stories.  Then  it  was  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world  for  men  to  get  loans,  if  there  was  anything 
like  a  reasonable  excuse  for  it,  and  to-day  the  same  conditions 
would  prevail  if  the  owners  could  go  around  and  distribute 
the  wages  themselves. 

There  is  still  a  third  factor  which  enters  into  the  financial 
relations  between  employer  and  employee,  and  that  is  the 
question  of  financial  rewards.  These  may  take  the  form  of 
insurance,  bonuses,  or  profit  sharing.  There  are  two  distinct 
and  opposing  viewpoints  regarding  such  rewards.  These  de- 
pend on  the  financial  status  of  the  person  rewarded,  his  men- 
tal attitude  toward  financial  matters,  and  his  tendency  to  stay 
in  one  place.  Theoretically,  every  one  who  labors  effectively 
is  doing  some  part  of  his  work  for  the  future  as  well  as  for  the 
present,  for  he  at  least  accumulates  some  experience  for  fu- 
ture use.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  all  of  us  prefer  our  rewards 
as  we  go  along. 

We  also  like  to  think  we  are  running  our  own  affairs  and 
we  do  not  see,  for  example,  that  our  life  insurance  is  any  more 
the  affair  of  the  firm  for  which  we  work  than  is  our  choice  of 
neckties  or  the  food  we  eat.  There  is  no  doubt,  however,  but 
that  insurance  companies  will  give  lower  rates  for  wholesale 
business  than  for  retail,  especially  if  payment  of  premiums 
is  guaranteed  by  a  well-rated  firm.  Cost  of  life  insurance  is 
made  up  by  adding  to  the  premium  due  to  mortality  enough 
to  cover  cost  of  selling  the  insurance  and  cost  of  collecting  the 
premiums  and  a  trifle  for  disbursing  benefits.  A  casual  glance 
at  the  report  of  any  insurance  company  creates  the  impres- 
sion that  its  profits  are  due  to  lapsed  policies,  for  there  are 
millions  of  dollars  collected  in  this  way  every  year  from  peo- 
ple who  are  oversold,  but  as  a  usual  thing  it  has  cost  so  much 
to  sell  it  that  these  few  payments  do  not  cover  sales  cost.  If 
a  few  hours'  work  will  sell  a  thousand  or  ten  thousand  policies, 
even  if  each  is  small  and  if  there  is  no  cost  for  collection,  it 
would  naturally  seem  as  though  the  recipients  of  the  policies 
should  be  very  thankful  to  have  them.  The  trouble  is  that 
very  few  people  really  demand  life  insurance,  and  most  of 


—  262  — 

that  few  do  not  need  it,  but  take  it  out  as  a  purely  business 
proposition.  To  have  something  thrust  at  us  that  we  do  not 
want,  even  though  it  is  a  bargain,  appeals  to  us  no  more  than 
the  neckties  and  cigars  that  our  friendly  female  relatives  de- 
light to  buy  at  Christmas  time. 

The  most  satisfactory  type  of  group  insurance  is  the  kind 
that  comes  from  mutual  effort,  usually  through  so-called 
mutual  benefit  associations.  These  are  purely  self-gov- 
erned and  voluntary  associations  in  most  of  the  successful 
cases.  Their  one  outstanding  defect  is  that  they  seldom  grant 
sufficient  insurance,  for  the  usual  limit  is  $100  with  a  sick 
benefit  of  five  to  ten  dollars  per  week.  This  is  supposed  to 
cover  the  cost  of  a  modest  funeral  preceded  by  board  at  home 
while  one  is  sick.  The  cost  of  this  insurance  is  usually  in  the 
vicinity  of  twenty-five  cents  per  month,  at  which  rate  such 
an  organization  will  apparently  make  a  surplus.  The  word 
apparently  is  used  advisedly  for  usually  the  funds  are  collected 
and  disbursed  on  company  time,  officers  work  for  nothing, 
company  stationery  and  stenographic  service  are  available  and 
the  thousand  and  one  things  that  cost  the  independent  com- 
pany money  are  free.  More  than  that,  the  service  of  these 
mutual  benefit  associations  is  taken  advantage  of  by  only 
relatively  few  of  the  employees.  The  men  who  will  come  in 
are  the  men  who  stay  with  the  company  year  in  and  year  out, 
so  a  mutual  benefit  association  can  hardly  be  thought  of  in 
the  light  of  a  means  to  hold  men  on  the  job.  This  is  one  of 
the  strong  talking  points  of  the  advocates  of  group  insurance. 
They  point  to  the  larger  policies  which  they  issue,  the  greater 
stability  of  their  companies,  and  the  fact  that  their  policies 
cover  every  one.  They  claim  great  stabilizing  value  and  say 
very  little  about  the  increased  premiums.  If  the  claims  for 
stabilization  can  be  established  it  is  very  likely  profitable,  as 
the  true  cost  of  changing  help  is  seldom  if  ever  acknowledged 
by  employers. 

There  seems  to  be  no  way  of  proving  that  any  definite  re- 
duction in  flow  of  labor  through  the  shop  can  be  expected  from 
issuing  insurance  policies.  From  the  employer's  point  of  view 
it  is  a  present,  which  costs  the  company  little  but  is  expected 
to  look  large.  Anything  offered  by  employers  except  hard 


—  263  — 

cash  is  apt  to  be  looked  on  for  a  time  with  suspicion.  They 
ask  why  it  is  offered  and  the  only  reason  they  can  see  is  that 
their  employer  thinks  it  will  pay.  If  it  pays  him  they  do  not 
expect  that  it  will  pay  them.  That,  however,  is  not  in  accord 
with  experience.  Of  course,  this  is  the  one  most  prominent 
difficulty  between  employee  and  employer — they  cannot  see 
a  mutual  profit  in  sticking  together.  If  group  insurance 
brings  them  together  it  pays,  if  not  it  misses  one  point  of 
advantage.  If  it  brings  them  together  it  does  so  because  the 
insurance  seems  to  the  workers  like  an  addition  to  their  pay. 
It  is  usually  too  far  in  the  future  to  mean  much  of  an  addition, 
in  fact  it  means  very  little,  because  those  who  are  already 
carrying  insurance  do  not  drop  it  on  account  of  going  to  work 
where  more  is  offered.  They  do  not  expect  to  stay  there. 
Very  few  people  go  to  a  new  shop  with  any  idea  of  a  perma- 
nent job.  They  stay  only  by  accident,  not  by  intent,  until 
by  and  by  a  few  get  so  they  are  afraid  to  go  out  looking  for 
a  job.  It  is  doubtful  if  any  kind  of  insurance,  mutual  benefit 
or  otherwise,  will  make  any  difference  in  this  attitude  of  this 
class  of  employees. 

When  a  man  is  ready  to  throw  up  a  job  it  is  usually  be- 
cause the  new  job  pays  more.  In  such  cases  it  is  almost  im- 
possible for  him  to  assign  a  definite  value  to  his  insurance 
policy.  If  the  new  company  to  which  he  is  going  makes  a 
similar  provision  it  has  no  value  at  all.  If  there  is  a  value 
to  the  company  it  is  only  because  it  is  the  first  in  the  field  in 
the  community.  The  second  concern  cuts  the  value  in  half  and 
so  it  goes  until  the  value  is  gone  and  the  cost  is  a  liability. 
In  other  words,  there  is  serious  danger  that  group  insurance 
may  succeed  so  well  as  to  become  a  mere  settled  charge  against 
doing  business  at  all.  Compulsory  insurance  would  put  all 
employees  on  an  equal  footing  and  would  simply  be  another 
change  in  business,  which  it  would  seem  should  be  a  charge 
either  on  the  community  as  a  whole  or  on  the  individual. 

Discussion  of  the  question  of  making  this  a  charge  on  the 
community  as  a  whole  also  brings  up  the  question  of  com- 
pulsory health  insurance,  as  the  principles  of  both  are  the 
same.  The  demand  for  both  so  far  seems  to  be  traceable  to 
people  who  are  interested  in  a  sociological  way,  or  possibly  to 


—  264  — 

those  who  may  profit  from  it  financially.  The  argument  is 
that  it  is  a  good  thing  for  any  one  to  carry  life  and  health  in- 
surance as  proved  by  the  large  number  who  do;  therefore,  it 
is  a  good  thing  for  all.  Since  it  costs  such  great  sums  to  sell 
the  insurance  which  is  carried,  it  ought  to  cost  much  less 
to  carry  insurance  on  everybody  than  on  the  few.  Whether 
this  is  true  or  not  we  can  only  speculate.  One  of  the  reasons 
for  the  present  high  cost  of  selling  insurance  is  the  intense 
rivalry  for  the  business  of  the  few  who  have  both  money  and 
good  health.  The  two  unfortunately  do  not  always  go  to- 
gether. If  the  great  general  public  is  taken  in,  the  collection 
of  premiums  will  be  in  the  hands  of  the  tax  collector  and  the 
cost  will  not  likely  be  charged  to  the  insurance  department, 
but  the  average  general  health  and  longevity  of  the  insured 
will  undoubtedly  change  quite  markedly.  To  be  sure,  it  will 
bring  in  many  who  cannot  now  get  insurance  at  normal  rates 
and  who  need  it,  and  many  who  do  need  it  but  are  not  per- 
suaded of  their  need.  In  fact,  it  is  doubtful  if  they  will  be 
persuaded  even  by  law,  which  fact  might  possibly  wipe  the 
plan  off  the  statute  books  soon  after  it  was  put  in  effect.  It 
seems  to  be  a  safe  thing  to  say  that  we  cannot  expect  any 
law  to  stay  on  the  statute  books  that  is  not  subscribed  to  will- 
ingly by  a  majority  of  the  people  affected  by  it,  as  witness  the 
shifting  back  and  forth  of  cities  from  license  to  no  license 
under  the  local  option  laws.  Insurance  is  so  logically  a  good 
thing  that  it  should  and  would  cost  very  little  to  sell  it  ex- 
cept for  the  keen  competition  of  rival  companies  for  a  small 
number  of  large  accounts. 

Profit  sharing  is  another  deferred  payment  which  has  suf- 
fered from  wrong  use  of  the  word.  A  guaranteed  profit  shar- 
ing, distributed  at  a  certain  date  and  for  a  fixed  amount,  is 
nothing  but  an  increase  in  pay.  True  profit  sharing  shares 
losses  also.  So  far  as  records  show  there  has  been  little  or  no 
successful  true  profit  sharing  which  was  not  combined  with 
so  much  paternalism  and  good  management  that  its  success 
could  not  be  proved  to  be  due  to  the  profit  sharing  feature  of 
the  business.  To  go  clear  to  the  root  of  the  matter  we  have 
to  ask  ourselves  what  proportion  of  people  really  want  to  be 
in  business  for  themselves  after  they  learn  what  the  penalties 


—  265  — 

are  and  what  worries  and  hardships  are  entailed.  They  may  be 
compared  with  the  pioneer  who  is  either  compelled  by  his 
nature  to  get  far  away  from  the  haunts  of  men,  or  compelled 
by  his  necessities  to  get  far  from  his  creditors.  Many  a  man 
is  in  business  who  has  often  wished  he  could  get  out  whole. 
He  only  stays  in  after  he  can  get  out  because  he  cannot  sell 
for  what  he  thinks  the  business  is  worth. 

Probably  nine-tenths  of  the  male  members  of  the  human 
race  want  only  enough  to  eat  and  wear,  and  a  warm  corner 
in  which  to  sleep.  We  do  not  want  responsibility;  we  care 
more  for  tenure  of  job  than  for  the  privilege  of  leading,  oth- 
ers. We  will,  and  do,  sell  our  share  of  the  future  profits  of 
the  firm  for  which  we  work  for  our  daily  stipend,  paid  with 
clocklike  regularity  and  spent  at  least  as  regularly.  We  sell 
our  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage  and  we  are  not  ashamed. 
Why  try  to  share  profits  with  those  who  will  not  take  a 
chance  themselves?  If  an  employee  wants  to  get  into  the 
firm,  why  not  open  the  door  a  crack  and  see  if  he  widens  the 
crack?  It  is  not  necessary  to  invite  everybody  in  at  once. 

Who  contributes  to  profits?  Surely  not  everybody,  be- 
cause then  profits  would  be  enormous.  It  is  only  those  who 
do  more  work  than  they  are  paid  for  doing,  who  really  put  the 
business  on  a  paying  basis.  No  system  of  cost  keeping  is  sure 
to  spot  those  who  pay  or  those  who  do  not.  One  man  may 
make  a  business  pay  by  accomplishing  a  great  deal  of  work 
himself,  another  by  keeping  out  of  the  way  while  others  work 
as  he  has  planned. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 
NON-FINANCIAL  REASONS  FOR  LABOR  TURNOVER 

ONLY  a  very  few  years  ago  a  man  who  declined  a  job  be- 
cause it  was  too  heavy,  too  dusty,  too  wet,  or  even  too 
dangerous  was  accused  of  being  lazy.  To-day  it  is  well  under- 
stood that  such  jobs  are  worth  more  money  than  the  light, 
clean,  dry,  safe  jobs  and  still  there  are  few  acceptable  takers. 
It  is  not  laziness  that  has  advanced  these  jobs  to  a  higher 
price,  it  is  prudence  on  the  part  of  workers  and  mental  inertia 
on  the  part  of  employers. 

But  even  apart  and  aside  from  a  spirit  of  fair  play  and 
humane  considerations,  it  does  not  pay  to  have  such  work  to 
offer.  It  should  be  eliminated  as  inefficient.  In  fact  a  job  so 
heavy  that  men  accept  it  with  reluctance,  is  heavy  enough  to 
pay  for  putting  in  some  mechanical  lift.  Jobs  which  involve 
working  in  a  dust-laden  atmosphere  are  also  bad.  Shop  dusts 
do  not  carry  the  bacteria  that  street  dusts  do,  but  they  carry 
sharp  cutting  particles,  especially  if  there  is  emery  or  other 
abrasive  in  the  air.  The  worst  trouble  with  dust  is  that  there 
is  no  gage  by  which  the  amount  can  be  tested.  Superin- 
tendents will  declare  that  rooms  are  not  unduly  dusty  which 
seem  to  outsiders  to  be  very  much  so.  No  one  can  prove,  how- 
ever, that  they  are  wrong.  State  laws  often  provide  that  all 
dust  due  to  manufacturing  operations  be  removed,  but  such 
laws  cannot  be  enforced  except  by  the  arbitrary  will  of  the  in- 
spector, because  he  has  no  way  of  scientifically  determining 
whether  the  law  is  complied  with  or  not.  It  cannot  be  liter- 
ally complied  with  because  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  dustless 
room.  The  nearest  approach  is  that  of  the  plenum  system  of 
ventilation  where  the  same  air  is  used  over  and  over  again, 
being  washed  and  otherwise  purified  as  it  is  circulated.  How- 

266 


-267  — 

ever,  some  men  and  a  great  many  women  simply  cannot  work 
under  such  conditions  because  of  the  excess  air  pressure. 

The  whole  subject  of  risks  of  physical  injury,  as  offset  by 
safety  engineering,  is  worthy  of  separate  and  more  complete 
treatment  than  can  be  covered  when  we  are  thinking  about 
holding  men  on  the  job.  Men  very  often  change  jobs  be- 
cause of  a  bad  accident,  not  to  themselves,  but  to  others.  The 
sight  of  men  who  have  lost  an  arm  or  a  hand  when  doing  the 
same  kind  of  work,  has  at  least  a  disquieting  effect  if  nothing 
more.  This  affects  their  wives  and  mothers  more  than  the 
men  themselves,  and  it  is  through  the  influence  of  women  that 
the  most  serious  effect  of  accidents  is  felt.  Other  things  being 
equal,  the  shop  with  the  cleanest  record  will  have  the  fewest 
men  leaving  it. 

The  fact,  however,  that  accidents  seldom  occur  is  no  con- 
solation to  the  man  who  does  get  hurt.  A  leg  or  an  arm  lost 
will  never  grow  again.  A  crushed  finger  may  be  a  bother  and 
a  disfigurement  for  life.  A  shop  where  castings  have  been  oc- 
casionally dropped  from  a  travelling  crane  without  hitting  any 
one,  has  no  assurance  that  the  next  casting  that  slips  will  not 
kill  enough  men  to  make  up  for  all  the  years  of  this  foolish 
practice.  Luck  is  a  poor  mooring.  It  is  sure  to  change. 

True  accident  prevention  is  something  that  must  be  ap- 
plied all  the  time.  Building  a  guard,  posting  a  notice,  scold- 
ing a  man  who  takes  off  a  guard,  do  little  good.  Constant 
supervision  is  necessary.  What  is  needed  is  a  department 
whose  sole  duty  it  is  to  see  that  guards  are  used,  and  that  safety 
practices  are  followed.  This  is  easy  if  standard  safety  prac- 
tices are  formulated.  It  cannot  be  done  if  every  one  works  as 
he  sees  fit,  because  then  it  becomes  a  matter  of  the  personal 
opinion  of  the  inspector,  which  has  little  weight  in  most  places. 
If  it  is  everybody's  business  it  is  nobody's  business. 

Other  disagreeable  working  conditions  can  also  profitably 
be  eliminated.  It  was  once,  and  is  still  now  a  time-honored 
custom  to  rebuff  men  who  wanted  comfortable  surroundings 
by  a  sarcastic  inquiry  as  to  whether  they  would  not  like  easy 
chairs  and  carpets  on  the  floor.  Now  we  find  that  it  almost 
pays  to  have  both  in  some  places.  There  is,  however,  a  great 
deal  of  difference  between  comfort  and  ease.  A  man  may  be 


—  268  — 

able  to  do  a  great  deal  more  work  if  he  can  do  it  in  comfort. 
Some  shops  were  formerly  run  with  much  the  same  idea  that 
the  old  Puritans  had,  that  if  a  man  was  comfortable  he  must 
be  sinful.  The  better  way  is  to  make  the  job  comfortable  and 
then  find  men  to  do  the  work  who  appreciate  comfort.  They 
will  likely  appreciate  the  opportunity  to  make  the  extra  money 
that  their  added  production  will  entitle  them  to.  Of  course, 
if  they  are  expected  to  take  the  comfort  as  part  of  their  pay 
they  will  not  stay. 

This  situation  is  especially  true  of  such  conditions  as  af- 
fect men's  health.  Leaving  the  individual  man  out  of  con- 
sideration it  is  a  wasteful  thing  for  all  of  us  for  any  man  to 
have  his  working  life  shortened  by  disease,  and  especially  by 
a  disease  that  brings  lingering  illness.  Every  one  of  us  has 
to  do  some  additional  work  for  the  sake  of  such  men  and  to 
help  pay  their  doctor's  bills. 

Failure  to  care  for  the  health  of  workers  on  the  part  of  em- 
ployers is  usually  through  lack  of  knowledge  or  attention. 
For  example,  in  a  shop  well  known  as  a  good  place  to  work, 
a  gang  of  laborers  struck  because  there  were  not  enough  whole 
rubber  boots  to  go  around  and  they  were  required  to  work  in 
a  wet  ditch.  When  the  matter  was  sifted  down  it  was  found 
that  the  stores  man  had  decided  how  long  a  pair  of  rubber 
boots  ought  to  last  and  until  they  had  been  out  of  stores  that 
length  of  time  they  were  to  be  considered  to  be  perfectly  good 
rubber  boots  and  no  amount  of  actual  holes  made  any  differ- 
ence. Needless  to  say  they  got  their  rubber  boots,  although 
even  then  their  foreman  was  disposed  to  fire  a  few  of  the  ring- 
leaders to  make  an  example  of  them  so  that  they  would  not 
kick  again  even  if  they  had  good  grounds  for  so  doing. 

Coupled  with  the  working  conditions  are  a  number  of 
minor  ones  connected  with  sanitation.  Most  men  appreciate 
good  washrooms,  toilets,  lockers,  etc.,  but  there  are  always 
a  few  rowdies  in  every  shop  who  look  on  them  as  signs  of  ef- 
feminacy and  who  try  to  abuse  them  from  the  start.  Many  em- 
ployers have  been  deterred  from  doing  more  in  this  direction 
because  of  this  abuse.  They  would  not  think  of  spending  the 
same  amount  of  money  on  equipment  or  small  tools  without 
keeping  it  under  supervision  all  the  time.  If  they  would 


—  269  — 

wateh  their  sanitary  appliances  as  closely  as  they  watch  the 
small  tools  in  their  tool  rooms  they  would  have  no  more 
trouble  than  they  do  with  tools.  Once  installed  and  in 
regular  use  the  vigilance  can  be  slightly  relaxed,  but  not  al- 
together. Such  sanitary  conditions  certainly  attract  a  better 
class  of  men  and  make  those  of  a  lower  class  better.  It  is  true 
that  many  men  only  notice  these  better  surroundings  by  their 
absence  when  they  go  to  other  shops,  but  if  that  leads  them 
to  come  back  and  talk  about  it,  the  purpose  is  served  just  as 
well;  in  fact  better  for  the  man  who  has  once  made  compari- 
sons and  found  the  other  shop  wanting  will  not  go  again  except 
for  considerably  higher  pay. 

The  greatest  influence  on  labor  turnover  comes  about 
through  the  elevation  of  the  morale  of  the  whole  shop.  A 
certain  type  of  man  which  frequents  ship  yards  and  construc- 
tion work  is  not  especially  susceptible  to  better  influences, 
but  the  great  majority  of  semi-skilled  and  skilled  mechanics 
are  quite  sensitive  to  their  surroundings  and  especially  to  the 
people  whom  they  meet.  This  applies  to  general  cleanliness. 
The  old  saying  that  cleanliness  is  next  to  Godliness  is  evi- 
dently much  believed.  Men  who  have  worked  in  a  clean  shop 
never  forget  it,  and  they  always  have  a  leaning  toward  return- 
ing to  it.  Moreover,  it  costs  almost  nothing.  It  takes  very 
little  more  time  to  clean  up  chips  every  day  than  once  a  week, 
the  tonnage  is  no  different.  The  largest  cause  of  uncleanliness 
in  most  shops  is  oil,  which  is  a  very  expensive  loss  when  con- 
sidered quite  apart  from  its  effect  on  the  workman.  It  re- 
quires many  barrels  of  oil  to  bring  shops  to  the  state  of  sat- 
uration which  many  exhibit,  enough  surely  to  make  drip  pans 
an  economy. 

Another  consideration  which  has  an  influence  on  the  flow 
of  labor,  though  quite  apart  from  this  last  subject,  is  tenure 
of  job.  On  a  building  job  no  one  expects  to  stay  until  the 
job  is  finished.  The  first  men  on  the  job  may  be  hundreds  of 
miles  away  when  the  plastering  is  being  done.  No  one  thinks 
anything  of  leaving  the  job  for  another  one  when  the  chance 
appears,  regardless  of  the  state  of  the  building.  Labor  turn- 
over, if  figured,  would  be  high.  But  on  a  job  which  has  the 
earmarks  of  permanency  there  is  likely  to  be  a  considerable 


—  270  — 

part  of  the  force  which  is  indispensable  and  which  does  stay 
through  thick  and  thin.  The  rest  of  the  force,  however,  is 
very  much  inclined  to  seek  other  employment  whenever  any- 
thing happens  to  make  them  suspect  that  there  is  a  falling  off 
of  business. 

Every  shop  has  its  "wireless"  or  underground  news  service 
through  which  the  workmen  know,  and  oftentimes  truly,  all 
about  the  incoming  business  of  the  company  before  the  presi- 
dent himself  hears  of  it.  The  presence  of  this  "wireless"  sys- 
tem is  full  evidence  that  the  company  has  not  the  habit  of 
taking  its  employees  into  its  confidence.  It  would  seem  much 
better  for  the  whole  organization  to  know  the  truth  about  the 
state  of  business  than  for  individuals  to  get  wrong  and  .un- 
justifiable suspicions.  The  fact  that  "wireless"  is  sometimes 
right  places  it  higher  in  the  esteem  of  the  shop  than  the  little 
information  which  the  management  so  rarely  gives  out. 

Much  of  so-called  welfare  work  is  done  for  the  sake  of 
placing  employees  in  a  position  where  they  cannot  readily 
quit  their  jobs  without  a  loss.  The  ethics  of  this  is  question- 
able. If  the  effort  is  made,  however,  to  put  the  employee  in 
a  position  where  he  gains  by  staying  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion raised.  A  man  with  a  family  which  makes  social  ties, 
whose  children  are  in  school,  stands  to  gain  very  greatly  by 
certainty  of  occupation  in  that  particular  vicinity.  The  indi- 
vidual shop  realizes  that  it  stands  to  gain  by  his  continued 
work,  but  oftentimes  overlooks  its  share  of  the  common  gain 
if  the  man  continues  to  work  in  the  same  town,  in  other  words, 
keeps  his  residence  nearby.  There  are  undoubtedly  many 
quiet  understandings  between  firms  that  they  will  not  hire 
men  who  leave  each  other's  shops.  This  has  a  tendency  to 
drive  workmen  out  of  town.  The  community  suffers,  and  the 
suffering  is  shared  among  the  different  shops.  Nobody  gains 
anything  because  any  man  who  suspects  that  he  is  the  victim 
of  such  a  conspiracy  not  only  wants  to  wipe  the  dust  of  that 
town  off  his  shoes,  but  he  also  warns  everybody  that  he  knows 
what  to  expect.  Then  the  superintendents  in  that  place  won- 
der why  it  is  so  difficult  to  get  the  right  kind  of  men  into  their 
shops. 

Tenure  of  job  means  that  every  man  can  be  assured  of  a 


—  271  — 

square  deal,  that  he  will  not  be  discharged  out  of  hand  for 
some  trivial  thing,  and  that  he  will  not  be  made  subject  to 
petty  annoyances  because  he  has  in  some  way  displeased  the 
boss.  When  shops  were  considered  large  if  they  had  200  em- 
ployees there  was  not  the  trouble  that  there  is  now  on  this 
score.  Then  the  man  who  made  or  lost  money  in  the  busi- 
ness was  in  the  office  and  paid  off  his  men  with  his  own  hands. 
His  foremen  reflected  him  in  everything  they  did.  Now  it  is 
the  very  rare  and  exceptional  manager  who  is  reflected  so  far 
down  the  line  as  his  foremen.  In  fact  there  are  literally  very 
few  general  managers.  Most  men  carrying  that  title  have 
some  department  of  the  business  which  is  their  hobby.  One 
thinks  the  sales  department  makes  the  profits  and  keeps  that 
under  his  finger.  Another  thinks  that  the  financial  end  is  all 
important,  and  his  accountants  are  figure  heads  because  he 
is  his  own  comptroller.  A  few  think  that  production  is  the 
important  thing,  and  they  pretty  generally  have  a  good  idea 
of  what  is  going  on  in  the  shop  and  a  correspondingly  vague 
idea  of  the  other  departments.  Very  rarely  is  there  a  general 
manager  who  discovers  that  the  most  of  his  outgoing  cash  is 
paid  for  human  service,  and  that  he  can  well  afford  to  spend 
a  considerable  time  on  that  side  of  the  question. 

The  natural  result  of  this  lack  of  many-sidedness  on  the 
part  of  chief  executives  is  that  their  influence  is  little  felt 
among  workmen.  There  have  been  a  few  notable  exceptions, 
especially  in  the  steel  business^  but  as  a  usual  thing  the  fore- 
men are  not  at  all  acquainted  with  their  general  managers. 
Their  conception  of  what  the  management  wants  comes  to 
them  through  superintendents,  whose  sole  idea  is  that  they 
are  judged  by  immediate  results,  and  any  failure  to  show  those 
results  will  be  inexcusable.  Consequently  there  is  little  time 
wasted  on  the  man  whose  record  to-day  is  no  better  than 
yesterday's.  The  system  is  inexorable  and  there  is  no  appeal. 
It  is  this  very  thing,  a  thing  of  which  many  otherwise  able 
executives  are  unaware,  that  has  brought  about  the  extreme 
and  unfortunately  antagonistic  state  between  employers  and 
employees.  It  is  what  gives  us  so  many  executives  with  the 
highest  of  ideals  having  under  them  shops  where  ideals  seem 
to  be  unknown.  These  are  the  very  men  who  appear  to  be  so 


—  272  — 

charitable  to  the  men  who  have  been  ruined  by  the  system 
practiced  in  their  own  shops. 

It  is  doubtful  if  there  is  any  cure  for  this  except  a  com- 
plete overhauling  of  shop  organizations.  There  appears  to  be 
no  place  in  the  future  for  foremen  and  superintendents  who 
have  been  in  the  habit  of  taking  unfair  advantage  of  individ- 
ual workmen  and  have  discharged  them  out  of  hand.  The 
newer  plan  of  having  each  foreman  limited  to  discharges  from 
his  own  department  and  giving  the  employment  department 
the  right  to  place  the  man  in  another  department  is  only  a 
step,  and  not  altogether  a  satisfactory  one.  Foremen  can 
make  the  shop  so  unpleasant  for  men  that  they  are  anxious 
to  get  away  and  poison  the  minds  of  all  their  friends  against 
that  shop.  Foremen  will  agree  among  themselves  not  to  take 
on  men  who  have  been  sent  to  the  employment  department 
for  transfer.  The  spirit  of  our  shops  will  have  to  be  entirely 
changed  before  the  high  ideals  which  are  expressed  and  hon- 
estly held  by  our  industrial  leaders  can  be  realized.  The  whole 
organization  will  have  to  think  in  terms  of  permanency  in- 
stead of  in  terms  of  to-day's  profits. 

Still  another  thing  that  militates  against  permanency  of 
organization  is  the  idea  so  often  met  that  youth  wins.  An 
organization  of  young  men  has  pep  and  push.  It  dares  to 
do  things  at  which  older  men  balk.  However,  an  organiza- 
tion of  young  men  is  almost  always  really  an  organization  of 
men  younger  than  the  leading  spirit.  When  one  is  thirty  any 
man  over  thirty  is  a  doubtful  case.  When  he  is  fifty  boys  of 
forty-five  are  a  trifle  young  to  be  trusted  with  important  mat- 
ters and  when  he  is  seventy  the  young  fellows  of  sixty  hardly 
ought  to  be  taken  on  at  all.  That  is,  age  as  treated  in  many 
establishments,  is  relative  and  not  actual. 

If  we  follow  the  careers  of  men,  big  and  little,  we  cannot 
help  noticing  that  the  men  who  grew  old  in  years  without 
aging  in  mental  grasp,  are  the  men  whose  early  years  have 
been  spent  in  manual  labor.  If  we  were  to  prescribe  for  a 
long  and  useful  life,  full  of  satisfaction,  we  would  advise  that 
up  to  the  age  of  forty  a  very  considerable  amount  of  a  man's 
time  should  be  spent  in  active,  muscle  using  work.  After  forty 
there  should  be  a  gradual  change  to  mental  effort,  so  that  after 


—  273  — 

the  age  of  sixty  perhaps  there  would  be  little  physical  work  but 
it  should  all  be  mental.  These  young  fellows  just  out  of  col- 
lege need  to  go  on  with  work  which  will  allow  them  to  show 
the  physical  prowess  which  they  have  shown  in  college.  They 
cannot  afford  to  become  old  men  before  their  time.  Their 
jobs  are  in  the  shop  learning  thoroughly  the  innermost  secrets 
of  manufacture,  or  on  the  road  demonstrating  the  products 
of  the  shop.  Later,  as  the  physical  urge  wears  down  is  time 
enough  for  them  to  come  into  the  office  or  into  administra- 
tive duties,  which  they  can  then  approach  with  the  knowledge 
of  materials  and  of  human  nature  that  they  cannot  get  in  any 
other  way  than  by  actual  contact. 

Shops  which  get  a  reputation  for  dropping  men  as  they 
approach  any  age  limit  whether  it  is  forty  or  fifty,  find  that 
valuable  men  seek  other  jobs  several  years  before  they  reach 
those  limits.  Actual  years  have  little  relation  to  working  ca- 
pacity. Over-anxiety,  anger,  worry,  and  most  of  all  fear,  all 
contribute  more  to  age  a  man  than  even  physical  dissipation. 
More  people  suffer  from  fits  of  anger  than  from  drink,  more 
from  fear  than  from  late  hours.  Men  who  live  in  the  fear  that 
at  some  definite  period  they  will  begin  to  go  down  hill,  and  in- 
stead of  choosing  jobs,  will  be  lucky  to  have  one,  cannot  do 
good  work.  There  are,  to  be  sure,  a  few  men  whose  mentality 
is  subnormal,  whose  mental  powers  never  grew  and  whose 
earning  capacity  is  dependent  entirely  on  their  muscles,  but 
they  are  very  few  in  proportion  to  the  whole.  They  must 
necessarily  be  our  door  tenders,  elevator  operators,  and  occupy 
our  other  low-grade  jobs  which  for  the  most  part  consist  in 
being  present. 

The  most  pitiful  cases  are  those  of  men  who  early  in  life 
have  started  in  as  clerks,  with  no  opportunity  or  inducement 
for  exercise  enough  to  keep  their  blood  flowing.  Their  lives 
have  been  dwarfed  and  made  inefficient.  They  never  have  de- 
veloped a  body  capable  of  carrying  a  large  brain  or  conceiv- 
ing large  thoughts.  As  they  grow  older  there  is  nothing  for 
them  to  do  but  to  gradually  sink  back  and  fade  away  with 
hardly  any  one  to  notice  their  exit,  because  they  have  not 
had  the  contact  with  the  physical  side  of  the  business  they 
are  in  which  is  necessary  for  a  true  understanding  of  it.  It 


—  274  — 

seems  that  we  were  intended  to  use  all  our  faculties,  and  the 
man  who  has  only  seen  and  talked  and  heard  about  an  indus- 
try doesn't  know  it.  He  must  have  handled  and  smelt  it  as 
well.  There  is  an  old  saying,  just  as  true  now  as  ever,  that  no 
man  can  sell  lumber  whose  hands  are  not  full  of  slivers.  The 
same  thing  applies  to  every  business.  No  one  can  talk  in- 
telligently about  steel,  or  cotton  or  oil  or  any  other  of  our 
products  who  has  not  been  on  intimate  physical  terms  with  it 
for  a  long  time.  How  much  better  it  would  be  if  our  offices 
were  filled  with  men  who  really  knew  the  business.  They  could 
accomplish  twice  as  much  and  be  worth  correspondingly  more 
than  the  men  who  have  always  had  the  collar  and  cuff  jobs. 

Finally,  men  change  jobs  because  of  their  home  affairs. 
This,  however,  is  a  matter  requiring  a  great  deal  of  serious 
thought.  Merely  seeing  that  the  problem  exists  will  not  solve 
it.  It  is  tied  up  with  our  whole  social  organization. 

Under  home  conditions  are  included,  health,  health  of  fam- 
ily, inheritance  of  money,  combining  or  splitting  up  of  fami- 
lies, going  to  school,  marital  relations  and  differences  of  opin- 
ion, and  many  other  things  which  the  majority  of  people  pre- 
fer to  fight  out  among  themselves,  whether  the  world  suffers  in 
consequence  or  not.  Many  employers  are  inclined  to  take  a 
part  in  such  matters,  so  whatever  our  personal  views  may  be 
we  ought  to  give  it  serious  consideration. 

What  are  the  cures  for  the  large  labor  turnover  found  in 
many  shops?  They  are  as  many  as  there  are  shops  and  wrong 
conditions.  Each  shop  must  be  studied  by  itself.  There  is 
no  cureall.  Some  of  the  most  prominent  and  prevalent  trou- 
bles have  been  outlined  but  the  whole  situation  can  be  summed 
up  in  the  words  "fair  play." 

Details  depend  on  the  conception  of  fair  play  held  by  em- 
ployer, employee  and  more  especially  by  the  foremen  with 
whom  workmen  come  in  contact.  We  are  too  much  inclined 
to  assume  that  what  has  gone  on  in  the  past  must  have  been 
right.  That  is  something  that  we  will  have  to  stop  at  once. 
We  will  have  to  let  the  past  bury  itself  so  far  as  possible,  start 
with  a  clean  slate,  and  judge  each  case  by  whatever  we  can 
see  of  the  future.  The  foreman  of  the  future  will  have  to  be 
a  diplomat  who  acts  to  secure  the  best  possible  cooperation 


—  275  — 

between  those  who  furnish  the  capital  and  those  who  fur- 
nish the  labor,  rather  than  as  a  taskmaster  solely  represent- 
ing the  owner,  and  commissioned  to  get  as  much  for  as  little 
as  possible. 


PART  IV 


INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 


Chapter  XXXIV 

Chapter  XXXV 

Chapter  XXXVI 

Chapter  XXXVII 

Chapter  XXXVIII 

Chapter  XXXIX 

Chapter  XL 


THE  STATUS  OF  VOCATIONAL  EDU- 
CATION      279 

A  STUDY  OF  THE  PROBLEM     .     .    .  289 
VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION   IN   THE 

PUBLIC  SCHOOLS 294 

VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION    IN   THE 

INDUSTRIES 300 

GENERAL  TRADE  METHODS  .     .     .  309 
THE  TRAINING  OF  FOREMEN    .    .313 

AMERICANIZATION 323 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 
THE  STATUS  OF  VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 

THE  prosperity  of  a  country  depends  on  the  prosperity  of 
its  people  rather  than  on  its  possessions,  and  individual 
prosperity  is  the  greatest  insurance  of  peace  that  can  be 
imagined.  Prosperity  moreover  does  not  mean  a  national 
opulence  based  on  paternalism,  but  comfort  earned  by  indi- 
vidual initiative.  Without  such  initiative  a  family,  corpora- 
tion, city,  or  nation  may  be  prosperous  as  a  whole,  but  its 
prosperity  is  founded  on  the  ability  of  one  or  a  few  men,  and 
it  is  certain  to  fluctuate  with  the  changing  leadership  which 
time  surely  brings.  The  advancement  of  the  many  lies  in  the 
training  of  each  individual  so  that  he  willingly  takes  his  share 
of  the  burdens  of  self-support  and  community  welfare.  What- 
ever advantages  the  inhabitants  of  the  Western  hemisphere 
may  enjoy  above  those  of  the  Eastern  are  unquestionably  due 
to  the  larger  liberty  for  personal  development  and  individual 
initiative  which  the  people  have  claimed  and  won,  and  the 
logical  extension  of  this  liberty  is  the  training  of  every  person 
in  the  vocation  in  which  he  can  make  the  most  of  himself. 

Vocational  education  is  as  old  as  civilized  history.  It 
found  early  expression  in  the  training  of  professional  men  and 
although  scoffed  at  it  nevertheless  proved  its  worth,  so  that 
to-day  it  is  universally  expected  that  a  man  will  enter  the 
professions  from  a  school  rather  than  from  an  apprentice- 
ship. It  is  true  that  a  few  enter  law  by  reading  and  a  few 
enter  the  ministry  without  formal  education,  but  the  few 
only  serve  to  accentuate  the  general  rule.  About  fifty  years 
ago  vocational  education,  in  the  form  which  has  developed 
into  engineering  education,  had  its  beginning  in  a  modest  way, 
with  no  loud  claims  and  no  apparent  reason  for  exciting  the 

279 


—  280  — 

envy  of  any  one.  Nevertheless  it  met  with  opposition,  not 
merely  from  the  cultural  schools  but  from  the  professional 
schools  as  well.  The  development  of  the  engineering  school 
has  been  a  slow  one  but  engineers  are  now  recognized  as 
professional  men  and  the  faculties  of  their  schools  take  their 
places  on  an  equal  footing  with  those  of  older  institutions. 

Such  schools,  however,  all  deal  with  the  professional  side 
of  vocational  training.  What  can  be  said  of  the  training  for 
the  more  prosaic  duties  of  life?  Entrance  into  the  trades, 
arts,  and  crafts  has  been  from  the  earliest  times  through 
example  and  practice.  They  have  been  carried  on  very 
largely  by  rule  of  thumb,  and  precedent  and  experience  have 
carried  more  weight  than  reason.  Acquiring  a  trade  has  been, 
and  still  is,  very  largely  a  process  of  memorizing  unrelated 
facts  and  blindly  practicing  accepted  methods.  Apprentice- 
ship was  the  only  avenue  of  approach.  It  was  a  mild  form 
of  slavery  into  which  a  boy  was  sold  or  bound  at  so  tender  an 
age  that  his  proclivities  could  not  possibly  be  predicted  with 
any  degree  of  certainty.  It  was,  moreover,  so  undemocratic 
that  it  could  not  flourish  on  western  soil,  and  the  wonder  is 
that  it  survived  as  long  as  it  did.  Apprenticeship  under  an 
indenture  is  now  so  rare  as  to  be  a  curiosity.  Its  place,  how- 
ever, can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  filled.  Workmen  for 
the  skilled  trades  have  been  recruited  from  men  who  have 
been  attracted  from  countries  where  apprenticeship  is  still 
accepted,  or  from  those  who  have  "stolen"  trades  by  working 
in  one  shop  after  another  until  they  finally  acquired  a  degree 
of  dexterity  and  skill  that  enabled  them  to  hold  permanent 
positions.  But  if  we  expect  to  maintain  a  supply  of  trained 
men,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  first  of  all  consider  the  facilities 
which  are  at  hand  and  their  possibilities  of  development,  and 
then  if  these  are  found  inadequate  to  consider  new  means. 

At  the  present  time  there  are  four  types  of  schools  to  which 
a  young  man  or  woman  may  go  in  order  to  acquire  a  knowl- 
edge of  an  industrial  occupation  or  trade.  These  are: 

1  Private  vocational  school 

2  Corporation  schools 

3  Public  schools 

4  Public  and  corporation  schools  in  cooperation. 


—  281  — 

Private  schools  immediately  divide  themselves  into  two 
classes,  those  conducted  for  a  profit  and  those  which  are  en- 
dowed so  that  their  benefits  are  partly  philanthropic.  Schools 
of  the  first  type  are  found  in  large  cities  where  they  thrive  at 
the  expense  of  those  who  feel  the  pressure  of  poverty,  and 
who  must  accordingly  begin  work  at  the  earliest  possible  mo- 
ment. Such  schools  teach  nothing  that  is  not  absolutely  es- 
sential to  an  immediate  earning  capacity.  They  give  rule  of 
thumb  instruction  with  very  little  reference  to  basic  princi- 
ples and  none  at  all  to  what  may  be  called  shop  economics, 
or  the  social  and  political  relations  of  men,  as  the  class  of 
people  to  whom  they  cater  cannot  afford  the  money  nor  the 
time  to  learn  anything  but  the  most  essential  operations  of 
the  trade  which  they  expect  to  follow.  A  great  deal  of  dissat- 
isfaction regarding  these  schools  has  been  expressed  by- both 
workmen  and  employers  but  as  yet  no  adequate  substitute  has 
been  offered.  They  do  not,  as  a  rule,  teach  with  the  thorough- 
ness that  is  desirable  from  all  sides  of  the  question,  but  they 
do  offer  a  better  and  more  efficient  means  than  "picking  up" 
a  trade.  The  private  schools  on  the  other  hand  which  are 
endowed,  and  which  are  really  philanthropic  in  that  they  of- 
fer tuition  at  less  than  cost,  are  doing  good  work,  but  they 
are  few  and  far  between.  Many  of  them  have  lost  their  dis- 
tinctive trade  features  and  have  taken  a  place  intermediate 
between  trade  schools  and  technical  schools.  They  turn  out 
men  who  aim  to  become  foremen  rather  than  workmen  and 
while  their  ambition  is  laudable  it  does  not  add  materially  to 
the  facilities  for  learning  manipulative  processes. 

Second  on  the  list  is  the  corporation  school,  which  is  a 
private  school  run  for  a  profit,  but  not,  however,  for  an  im- 
mediate profit.  It  may  be  possible  to  conduct  such  a  school 
so  that  its  product  will  pay  for  the  cost  of  maintenance,  but 
it  is  not  at  all  likely  that  it  can  be  done  and  still  turn  out 
the  type  of  graduates  that  will  prove  the  most  valuable. 
These  schools  are  distinct  from  the  first  class  of  private  schools 
in  that  the  latter  gets  its  profit  from  the  tuition  charged, 
while  the  corporation  school  not  only  gives  free  instruction 
but  pays  wages  as  well.  This  very  fact  excites  suspicion  in 
the  minds  of  many  as  they  wonder  whether  a  school  in  which 


—  282  — 

the  learner  has  to  produce  enough  to  earn  his  way  can  be 
thorough  enough  to  give  the  general  training  which  is  de- 
sirable. It  can  be  said,  however,  that  corporations  find  it  to 
their  advantage  to  devote  a  very  considerable  amount  of  time 
to  education  in  economics  as  distinct  from  the  immediate 
shop  problems,  and  that  training  in  loyalty  and  a  proper  un- 
derstanding of  the  problems  of  manufacture  and  sale,  which 
are  outside  the  immediate  sphere  of  the  workman,  prove  to 
pay  good  future  dividends. 

None  but  shops  of  some  considerable  size  and  wealth  can 
afford,  however,  to  maintain  any  educational  departments,  and 
consequently  Only  a  small  part  of  the  youth  who  might  like 
to  learn  a  trade  can  be  accommodated  by  them.  This  and 
the  feeling  which  prevails,  especially  among  the  workmen 
themselves,  that  education  is  a  community  problem  has  led 
to  the  establishment  of  a  number  of  publicly  supported  trade 
schools,  usually  known  as  vocational  schools.  Such  schools 
range  from  pre-vocational,  which  aim  only  to  open  the  way  for 
the  pupils  to  enter  the  lowest  grade  of  a  vocation,  to  those 
which  teach  a  trade  together  with  the  essentials  of  a  cultural 
education.  Public  schools  for  this  purpose  are  expensive  as 
compared  with  the  cultural  public  schools,  but  if  adequate  re- 
sults are  obtained  the  expense  is  justified.  It  has  been  pos- 
sible in  several  states  to  obtain  legislation  which  grants  state 
aid  for  such  schools  as  give  direct  and  substantial  trade  train- 
ing and  the  cost  to  the  local  community  has  been  brought 
down  to  approximately  that  of  the  ordinary  high  school. 

Grave  questions  of  control  have  been  brought  out  by  the 
movement  for  industrial  education.  It  is  necessarily  admitted 
that  the  industries  must  be  manned  and  that  the  interest  of 
the  country  as  a  whole  demands  that  they  be  well  manned, 
and  yet  there  are  a  great  many  people  who  shrink  from  any- 
thing that  will  look  like  public  sanction  of  any  form  of  school 
that  does  not  prepare  its  students  for  college  or  university.  In 
fact,  the  entire  school  system  of  the  country  has  been  based 
on  the  idea  that  every  one  should  aspire  to  become  a  uni- 
versity graduate,  and  that  men  for  the  trades  and  industries 
should  be  recruited  from  the  leavings  or  by-product  of  these 
schools.  At  one  time  the  advent  of  the  engineering  school 


—  283  — 

seemed  likely  to  break  up  the  unity  of  this  plan,  but  the  prob- 
lem was  solved  by  recognition  of  the  technical  schools  by 
the  colleges,  and  while  this  concession  was  made  grudgingly 
there  is  little  doubt  but  that  it  was  a  wise  decision.  The 
same  solution,  however,  can  hardly  be  made  of  the  industrial 
school  problem.  Such  a  school  cannot  train  men  for  the  higher 
schools  of  engineering,  because  it  is  frankly  something  more 
than  an  educational  movement.  It  plans  to  teach  and  train 
at  the  same  time.  The  graduate  must  be  able  to  prove  his 
knowledge  by  his  work.  It  is  not  enough  that  he  should  be 
able  to  calculate  the  speed  at  which  a  steel  shaft  would  re- 
volve in  a  lathe.  Such  knowledge  alone  is  worse  than  use- 
less to  him.  He  must  be  able  to  put  the  shaft  in  the  lathe  and 
turn  it  at  the  proper  speed. 

It  will,  therefore,  be  seen  that  there  is  a  real  difference, 
which  is  also  irreconcilable,  between  the  formal  education  of 
the  public  schools  and  the  education  and  training  of  the  trade 
school.  This  difference  has  led  to  a  bitter  controversy  as  to 
the  control  of  the  new  schools.  The  dispute  is  always  over 
the  question  of  whether  the  new  schools  will  be  established 
and  controlled  by  the  same  agencies  as  the  public  schools,  that 
is,  whether  they  shall  be  a  part  of  the  public  school  system, 
or  whether  they  shall  be  under  entirely  separate  control.  The 
advocates  of  separate,  or  "dual"  control,  claim  that  the  op- 
portunity to  do  this  work  has  rested  with  the  public  schools 
for  many  years  and  they  have  not  merely  ignored  it  but  have 
fought  it  bitterly.  They  also  claim  that  there  is  a  very  press- 
ing need  of  trade  training,  that  the  prosperity  of  the  country 
is  dependent  on  it,  and  that  if  it  is  to  succeed  it  must  be 
placed  in  the  hands  of  its  friends.  They  cite  the  results  of 
placing  drawing  and  manual  training  in  the  hands  of  the  pub- 
lic schools.  They  claim  that  these  subjects  have  been  so  highly 
refined  by  the  public  schools  that  there  is  no  value  left  in 
them  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  industries  to  which  they 
are  supposed  to  apply.  The  professional  educator,  on  the 
other  hand,  sees  grave  danger  that  boys  and  girls  who  might 
otherwise  grow  up  into  the  professions  may  be  diverted  into 
what  he  considers  the  baser  channels  of  trade  and  industry. 
He  believes  that  they  should  be  given  every  opportunity  to 


—  284  — 

advance  to  as  high  a  position  as  possible,  and  his  idea  of  a 
high  position  is  one  that  demands  a  great  amount  of  the 
preparation  which  formal  education  offers. 

Experience,  however,  indicates  that  it  is  not  at  all  neces- 
sary to  arrange  the  curriculum  of  an  effective  trade  school  in 
such  a  way  as  to  handicap  the  graduate  no  matter  in  what 
direction  he  may  desire  to  advance.  The  studies  which  are 
offered  to  him  in  high  school,  with  mental  discipline  as  their 
aim,  are  replaced  by  others  which  combine  with  that  same 
mental  discipline  much  useful  information.  The  actual  num- 
ber of  hours  of  recitation  in  most  of  the  trade  schools  is  as 
many  as  are  required  in  the  average  high  school  for  graduation. 
Work  in  foreign  languages  is  usually  omitted,  a  considerable 
amount  of  mathematics  is  made  more  directly  applicable  to 
the  industry  in  hand,  and  much  more  attention  is  also  paid 
to  physics.  The  shop  practice  is  almost  entirely  added  time. 
The  pupils  in  a  trade  school  are  kept  a  great  deal  busier  than 
those  in  the  usual  high  school,  but  the  work  is  varied  so  much 
between  shop  and  class  room  that  there  is  neither  mental  nor 
physical  weariness.  There  appears  no  good  reason  why  all 
of  these  innovations  should  not  be  incorporated  in  the  public 
schools.  The  experiments  at  Gary  seem  to  indicate  that  a 
very  considerable  gain  comes  from  lengthening  the  time  dur- 
ing which  the  pupils  are  under  the  supervision  of  the  school 
authorities.  Boys  and  girls  of  high-school  age  who  attend  a 
single  session  and  are  left  to  study  out  of  school  are  very 
apt  to  do  their  work  in  a  most  perfunctory  manner.  They 
either  play  all  the  afternoon  and  then  sit  up  late  at  night 
to  get  their  lessons,  or  else  they  study  all  the  afternoon  and 
go  out  to  dances,  parties  or  theaters  late  at  night. 

The  lack  of  useful  application  of  many  of  the  studies  which 
children  are  forced  to  endure  for  the  sake  of  getting  into 
college  is  constantly  calling  forth  a  great  deal  of  adverse  criti- 
cism. The  colleges,  however,  are  self-perpetuating  and  there- 
fore independent  of  public  opinion.  In  the  Middle  West 
where  public  control  is  gaining  ground  there  is  a  marked 
change  in  the  attitude  of  the  college  faculties  toward  the 
people  and  the  result  has  been  that  some  advancement  has 
been  made.  This  same  public  opinion  may  yet  assert  itself 


—  285  — 

in  unmistakable  terms  all  over  the  country,  and  it  may  be 
that  the  absorption  of  the  industrial  schools  by  the  public 
schools  will  mark  the  passing  of  the  name  in  one  direction  and 
the  methods  in  the  other. 

As  a  matter  of  economy  of  money,  time,  and  effort,  there 
is  no  doubt  but  that  all  educational  effort  should  be  under  a 
single  administrator  who  should  be  broad-minded  enough  to 
recognize  that  education  may  be  useful  as  well  as  luxurious. 
So  long  as  colleges  depended  solely  on  the  rich  men's  sons  for 
their  support  the  people  as  a  whole  wished  little  to  say  about 
their  methods,  but  as  soon  as  it  became  possible  for  the  poor- 
est of  boys  and  girls  to  work  their  way  through  the  colleges, 
aided  by  scholarships  granted  by  the  public,  then  it  became 
essentially  an  affair  of  the  people.  The  industrial  school 
movement  is  largely  a  public  movement,  and  as  such  it  recog- 
nizes the  right  of  every  citizen  to  training  at  public  expense, 
no  matter  whether  the  immediate  object  of  that  training  is 
entrance  to  the  professions,  to  commerce,  or  to  the  industries. 
The  people  will  not  recognize  that  the  professions  are  in  any 
way  any  higher  than  the  industries.  They  remember  that 
"a  man's  a  man  for  a'  that,"  and  they  will  ultimately  insist 
that  their  schools  recognize  it  also. 

It,  therefore,  seems  safe  to  conclude  that  in  many  instances 
it  is  wise  for  a  community  to  safeguard  its  industrial  schools 
by  placing  them  under  the  control  of  a  friendly  board  of 
trustees  until  the  time  comes  when  their  value  and  right  to 
exist  is  recognized  by  the  authorities  of  the  public  schools  and 
it  is  safe  to  make  the  control  the  same  for  both,  without  danger 
that  the  practical  nature  of  the  trade  school  will  be  taken 
away.  In  this  way  the  energizing  force  of  the  more  vital 
methods  of  the  trade  school  will  become  an  important  factor 
in  the  creation  of  a  public  school  system  which  will  serve 
the  needs  of  both  present  and  future  with  greater  efficiency. 

The  difficulty  of  control,  as  previously  discussed,  has  led 
to  an  attempt  to  combine  on  a  cooperative  basis  the  best  of 
the  public  school  systems  and  the  best  of  the  shop  systems. 
The  shop  furnishes  the  training  in  mechanical  processes,  by 
putting  the  pupils  at  productive  work  and  paying  them  wages, 
while  the  school  furnishes  the  cultural  studies  and  the  class- 


—  286  — 

room  work  which  relates  to  the  trade.  The  division  of  time 
between  shop  and  school  varies  from  the  half-time  school,  in 
which  alternate  weeks  are  spent  in  shop  and  :chool,  to  the 
continuation  school  in  which  from  four  to  ten  hours  a  week 
are  spent  in  classroom  and  the  rest  in  the  shop. 

This  method  of  cooperation  has  been  extensively  exploited 
but  as  yet  has  not  had  any  widespread  adoption.  The  diffi- 
culty appears  to  be  in  the  lack  of  an  understanding  of  the 
problems  of  the  shop  by  the  school  people  and  a  correspond- 
ing lack  on  the  part  of  the  shop  men.  The  scheme  is  not  at- 
tractive to  employers,  unless  the  apprentices  are  profitable,  for 
in  most  instances  it  appears  to  be  undesirable  from  all  points 
of  view  to  put  the  pupils  under  bond  to  remain  during  the 
whole  course.  In  fact,  there  is  a  very  decided  feeling  among 
the  more  progressive  manufacturers  that  an  unwilling  worker 
costs  more  than  he  earns.  At  the  same  time  it  is  equally  well 
accepted  that  boys  need  to  be  strongly  led  and  influenced,  and 
that  their  tendency  to  drop  one  job  and  go  to  another  is  often 
like  falling  "from  the  frying  pan  into  the  fire,"  and  that  in 
the  long  run  they  appreciate  the  employer  who  has  held  a 
stern  hand  over  them. 

A  discussion  of  the  opportunities  for  trade  training  would 
not  be  complete  without  some  reference  to  the  relation  of  the 
technical  high  school  to  the  industries.  Many  of  these  schools 
have  remarkably  fine  and  complete  equipment.  They  have 
all  the  facilities  for  giving  a  very  complete  training,  and  yet 
they  seldom  offer  courses  which  they  claim  will  fit  boys  for 
skilled  trades.  These  schools  teach  wood  working,  machine 
work,  forging,  etc.,  not  for  their  application  to  production  but 
for  their  educational  value.  They  are  primarily  schools,  and 
tradition  has  long  attempted  to  confine  school  work  to  purely 
educational  activity.  The  signs  of  the  times  seem  to  indicate, 
however,  that  social  and  industrial  activities  will  soon  take 
their  places  on  a  plane  of  equality  with  the  more  purely  educa- 
tional work.  Both  require  not  only  teaching  but  practice  as 
well,  for  it  is  not  enough  that  the  pupil  shall  know ;  he  must 
also  be  able  to  put  his  knowledge  to  work  with  intelligence,  and 
with  a  certainty  that  he  will  produce  results  with  reasonable 
celerity  and  with  some  degree  of  automatic  action.  This  the 


—  287  — 

technical  high  school  does  not  attempt  to  do  and  the  result 
is  that  their  graduates  find  themselves  without  the  proper 
training  with  which  to  enter  industry,  except  on  its  lowest 
rounds  which  seem  to  tHem  to  be  beneath  their  dignity. 
Therefore,  they  are  apt,  if  they  seek  employment  in  shops  at 
all,  to  go  into  offices  or  drafting  rooms  where  their  training 
proves  helpful  in  that  it  has  given  them  an  amount  of  me- 
chanical intelligence  which,  is  lacking  in  the  graduates  of  the 
grammar  or  the  ordinary  high  school. 

The  number  who  are  able  to  avail  themselves  of  any  or 
all  of  these  forms  of  education  is  very  small  compared  with 
the  great  number  of  wage  earners  who  might  profit  by  some 
form  of  training.  The  census  of  1910  disclosed  about  thirty- 
eight  million  earners  in  the  country  (this  omitted  all  women 
keeping  house  in  their  own  families,  probably  because  it  was 
impossible  to  establish  the  amount  of  their  earnings)  and  of 
these  at  least  half  were  in  skilled  or  semi-skilled  occupation 
in  which  the  use  of  both  hand  and  brain  is  necessary.  The 
same  census  classification  also  shows  there  were  over  six  mil- 
lion people  on  farms  whose  need  of  education  will  at  once  be 
admitted.  In  addition  to  this  there  were  over  seven  millions 
in  manufacturing  work.  Then  there  were  three  hundred  thou- 
sand in  transportation,  a  million  and  a  quarter  in  trade,  two 
million  in  the  professions  (who  have  already  been  provided 
with  facilities  for  education  and  training),  nearly  two  million 
more  in  domestic  service  and  nearly  a  million  in  clerical  work. 
There  were  also  a  quarter  of  a  million  in  public  service  to  which 
entrance  can  be  gained  only  by  long  and  arduous  labor,  and 
to  these  there  should  also  be  added  another  million  and  a  half 
of  farm  laborers,  every  one  of  whom  could  profit  by  training. 
The  number  of  housewives  whose  earnings  are  quite  equal  to 
that  of  the  head  of  the  family,  if  the  service  rendered  could 
be  expressed  in  money,  is  unknown,  but  it  seems  safe  to  assume 
that  for  every  ten  of  the  population  one  woman  works  hard 
to  bring  up  a  family,  feeding  and  clothing  them  during  their 
childhood.  The  women  who  idle  away  their  time  as  butter- 
flies in  society  greatly  impress  us  because  we  hear  so  much 
about  them,  but  they  do  not  constitute  a  large  part  of  the 
population.  Thus  only  about  1-70  of  1  per  cent  of  the  work- 


—  288  — 

ers  are  getting  direct  training  for  their  vocations,  and  only 
14  of  1  per  cent  are  getting  education  which  is  even  related 
to  their  vocation. 

All  of  these  different  forms  of  industrial  education  can 
only  be  considered  in  the  light  of  experiments,  none  of  which 
can  be  said  to  have  failed,  and  none  of  which  have  as  yet 
appealed  to  the  public  as  leading  toward  a  solution  of  the 
problem.  In  fact,  the  problem  is  composed  of  so  many  and 
so  diversified  problems  that  even  more  experiments  and  more 
diversified  means  will  probably  yet  have  to  be  devised  and 
tried  out. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
A  STUDY  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

IT  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  a  very  large  part  of  the 
work  of  the  world  is  done  on  a  basis  of  precedent  rather 
than  on  a  basis  of  scientific  investigation.  Scientists  have 
busied  themselves  with  large  problems,  and  the  details  of  the 
methods  by  which  their  discoveries  may  be  made  useful  have 
been  neglected.  Scientific  management,  so  called,  has  little  of 
science  about  it  but  is  rather  a  bringing  together  of  rules  of 
thumb  and  classifying  them  so  that  they  may  be  workable 
by  system.  It  is,  however,  undoubtedly  the  entering  wedge 
toward  the  application  of  science  to  our  shop  and  factory 
problems  so  that  some  day  our  work  will  all  be  done  on  a 
more  satisfactory  basis.  When  that  time  comes  the 
problem  of  trade  training  will  be  much  simplified  be- 
cause it  will  become  a  problem  for  which  our  educational 
system  has  been  expressly  developed.  In  the  mean- 
time there  is  great  demand  for  able  mechanics  and  capa- 
ble men.  In  good  times  prices  may  be  made  high  enough 
to  cover  ineffective  work,  but  in  dull  times  prices  drop  to  a 
low  level,  and  the  best  of  workmen  are  not  good  enough  to 
make  it  profitable  to  do  the  small  amount  of  business  that  is 
presented.  In  slack  seasons  the  men  who  can  be  retained 
need  to  be  better  developed  as  all  around  workmen  because 
it  is  necessary,  in  many  cases,  that  they  should  combine  with 
their  regular  work  other  functions  which  belonged  to  men 
who  were  dropped  from  the  payroll.  The  problem  will,  of 
course,  not  wait  for  our  shops  to  be  placed  on  a  scientific  basis, 
but  fortunately  a  considerable  part  of  the  problem  is  not 
likely  to  be  changed  by  that  innovation. 

The  highest  type  of  workman  is  the  one  who  not  only  has 

289 


—  290  — 

the  ability  to  earn  money  but  also  the  ability  to  spend  it 
wisely  and  to  live  in  a  right  attitude  toward  his  fellowmen. 
Education  in  the  appreciation  of  what  is  good,  in  distinction 
from  what  is  costly,  is  at  least  as  necessary  for  the  man  who 
is  to  earn  large  wages  in  the  industries,  as  it  is  for  the  man 
who  is  to  earn  a  small  wage  through  the  professions.  If  a 
bricklayer  earns  $2000  a  year  he  certainly  should  know  how 
to  spend  it  to  the  same  advantage  as  a  professional  man  who 
earns  no  more.  The  very  fact  that  industrial  education  is 
intended  to  .make  the  wage  earner  more  prosperous  is  reason 
enough  for  insisting  that  he  also  be  given  at  least  as  much 
of  an  education  in  appreciation  as  the  boy  who  expects  to 
enter  commercial  or  professional  life.  Then  again  the  wage 
earner  comes  in  more  intimate  contact  with  the  disputed 
points  between  labor  and  capital  than  those  in  other  walks  of 
life.  It  is  desirable  that  he  be  fully  informed  of  all  the  cir- 
cumstances which  should  influence  him  in  his  attitude  toward 
his  employer.  He  should  be  taught,  not  merely  his  rights 
under  the  law,  but  also  his  responsibilities  and  duties  as  a 
man  and  a  citizen.  In  this  one  field  alone  much  can  be  done 
to  alleviate  labor  troubles,  for  most  disputes  come  about 
through  misunderstandings.  Nor  are  such  misunderstandings 
limited  solely  to  labor  troubles  which  break  out  in  strikes,  but 
they  extend  to  the  daily  and  hourly  friction  which  has  so  bad 
an  effect  in  a  factory  where  disagreement  is  smoothed  over  but 
not  up-rooted. 

It  should  not  require  a  large  amount  of  time  to  present 
those  portions  of  the  curriculum  which  should  be  common  to 
all  schools  but  which  are  not  always  given  sufficient  promi- 
nence. The  larger  part  of  the  time  must  still  be  given  to 
practice,  which  is  different  for  every  trade  and  for  every  com- 
munity in  which  the  trade  is  practiced,  but  which  also  has 
some  fundamental  principles  which  are  common  to  groups  of 
trades  if  not  to  all.  The  one  fundamental  of  all  trades  and 
vocations  is  the  art  of  measuring,  and  this  can  be  taught  with 
profit  to  those  in  every  walk  in  life.  The  same  principles  are 
used  by  the  cook  and  the  machinist  though  the  latter  might 
not  recognize  it  at  once.  Beyond  this  point  the  different  voca- 
tions can  be  subdivided  into  large  groups  having  common 


9Q1  _ 

^\J  A. 

principles,  until  the  point  is  reached  where  a  final  decision 
must  be  made  and  the  pupil  takes  up  the  training  which  ap- 
plies only  to  the  particular  trade  which  he  has  chosen  for 
his  life  work. 

In  order  to  properly  consider  the  various  trades  and  their 
relations  and  to  discover,  if  possible,  the  extent  to  which  trade 
training  may  be  used  as  vocational  guidance,  it  is  necessary  to 
analyze  the  processes  of  industry  as  well  as  the  mental  pro- 
cesses of  the  prospective  worker.  All  vocations  may  be  broadly 
divided  into  those  which  are  mere  repetitions  of  a  given  task 
and  those  which  require  original  thought  in  each  case.  For 
example,  a  weaver  or  a  street  sweeper  who  has  once  learned 
the  particular  manipulations  of  his  craft  becomes  almost  auto- 
matic in  it;  he  meets  with  no  emergencies  except  those  with 
which  he  soon  learns  to  cope.  On  the  other  hand,  the  lawyer, 
clergyman,  farmer,  or  painter,  all  have  to  meet  every  case  as 
it  comes.  They  each  use  certain  fundamental  principles  in  all 
that  they  do,  but  those  principles  become  simply  tools  with 
which  they  do  their  work.  In  the  other  class  the  work  is  the 
routine  exercise  of  principles.  A  little  study  of  the  various 
industries  discloses  the  fact  that  there  is  great  need  of  reason- 
ing power,  and  that  the  number  of  places  where  men  can  work 
in  a  purely  automatic  atmosphere  is  small.  We  also  discover 
that  almost  all  vocations  have  their  automatic  details.  The 
lawyer  carries  this  so  far  that  a  large  part  of  his  work  consists 
of  filling  in  standard  legal  blanks,  the  minister  is  apt  to  fall 
back  on  stock  expressions,  and  the  machinist  who  is  working 
at  a  semi-automatic  machine  supplies  the  remaining  amount 
of  automatic  action. 

Then  there  are  two  distinct  types  of  industry  when  con- 
sidered as  a  whole.  There  is  the  type  in  which  a  raw  material 
is  treated  in  various  steps  but  always  in  the  same  steps,  like 
the  manufacture  of  wire,  of  textiles  or  of  garments,  where  one 
process  follows  another  always  in  the  same  order  and  where 
there  is  little  or  no  variation  in  the  product  that  requires  varia- 
tion in  the  workman's  manipulation.  At  the  other  extreme 
are  vocations  like  wood  carving,  stone  cutting,  etc.,  which  call 
for  very  little  repetition  of  work  but  for  a  very  decided  degree 
of  artistic  ability. 


—  292  — 

There  is  also  the  question  of  the  adaptability  of  a  given  per- 
son to  any  one  or  a  number  of  different  vocations.  It  is  neces- 
sary for  our  comfort  and  prosperity  that  all  these  vocations 
should  be  fully  manned  no  matter  what  their  lack  of  desir- 
ability. To-day  the  undesirable  jobs  are  filled  by  those  who 
cannot  get  desirable  ones,  and  who  accordingly  get  the  smallest 
pay  and  the  least  satisfaction  in  life,  but  it  is  conceivable  that 
if  every  one  were  trained  to  do  the  work  he  was  best  fitted 
to  do,  that  it  would  be  possible  to  fill  what  are  now  the  unde- 
sirable jobs  only  by  making  them  desirable,  either  by  better- 
ing their  surroundings,  by  additional  compensation,  or  by 
decreased  hours. 

There  is  a  great  difference  in  men  from  physical,  mental, 
and  temperamental  points  of  view.  The  improvement  of  ma- 
chinery has  diminished  the  physical  distinction  until  it  is 
almost  eliminated.  Derricks  and  cranes  have  taken  the  place 
of  strong  backs,  and  brute  force  is  confined  to  athletic  tri- 
umphs. The  mental  and  the  temperamental  attitude  are  the 
strong  deciding  factors  which  determine  the  work  which  one 
should  attempt.  Ability  to  do  a  given  piece  of  work  and  a 
liking  for  that  work  may  not  necessarily  go  together.  A 
man  may  be  able  to  earn  the  best  living  working  at  some 
task  for  which  nature  has  fitted  him  in  everything  except  a 
liking  for  it.  In  that  case  he  must  decide  for  himself  between 
his  duty  to  his  family  and  the  community,  which  leads  him 
to  do  the  work  at  which  he  is  most  valuable,  or  to  follow 
his  own  inclination  and  do  the  agreeable  task  and  accept  the 
material  sacrifice  which  is  inevitable. 

Any  program  of  industrial  education  must  take  into  con- 
sideration the  present  state  of  affairs.  It  is  not  enough  to 
suggest  a  way  of  training  those  who  will  be  the  workers  and 
the  leaders  in  years  to  come.  It  is  necessary  to  provide  for 
the  improvement  of  those  who  are  already  working.  The 
program  should  not,  however,  be  such  that  it  will  attract  the 
young  man  or  woman  who  might  otherwise  get  a  full  training. 
It  should  not  be  necessary  for  a  boy  or  a  girl  to  give  up  a 
broad  general  education  in  order  to  learn  the  specific  details 
of  any  vocation.  He  should  not  be  obliged  to  enter  industry 
in  order  to  get  a  training  in  that  industry.  On  the  other  hand, 


—  293  — 

if  circumstances  make  it  necessary  for  him  to  seek  employ- 
ment he  should  not  have  to  give  up  all  hope  of  becoming  edu- 
cated in  as  broad  a  sense  as  his  surroundings  and  mentality 
will  permit.  Finally  the  mental  capacity  of  the  pupil  must 
be  taken  into  account,  not  that  any  mental  faculty  cannot  be 
developed  under  proper  treatment  but  because  efficiency  de- 
mands that  we  make  the  most  of  our  natural  possessions,  and 
because  the  work  of  the  world  affords  places  for  every  type  of 
mentality  short  of  the  imbecile. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 
VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS 

VOCATIONAL  training  in  the  public  schools  is  a  compara- 
tively simple  problem,  and  one  which  has  been  suffi- 
ciently worked  out  for  so  many  vocations  that  a  more  or  less 
established  method  of  procedure  can  be  set  up  as  capable  of  ef- 
fective use.  On  the  other  hand,  the  relations  of  the  basic  prin- 
ciples of  the  various  industries  have  never  yet  been  thorough!^ 
brought  out,  with  the  result  that  each  vocation  is  taught  as  a 
unit,  and  so  the  boy  who  enters  one  and  finds  that  he  is  not 
able  to  adapt  himself  to  it  without  a  serious  struggle  and  de- 
cides to  enter  another  has  to  go  back  and  cover  the  entire 
ground  of  the  new  vocation.  Attempts  have  been  made  to 
study  individuals,  and  to  give  them  intelligent  advice  as  to 
the  vocations  in  which  they  might  find  success,  but  the  psy- 
chologist has  so  far  declined  to  concern  himself  very  closely 
with  the  actual  conditions  of  industry.  Until  some  one  who 
has  had  personal  experience  with  the  industrial  processes  under 
the  pressure  of  necessity  also  studies  the  question  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  psychologist  there  is  little  hope  that  much 
help  will  come  from  that  direction.  Caution  will  dictate  that 
it  is  desirable  that  every  boy  and  girl  study  the  subjects  which 
are  common  to  all  vocations.  This  is  already  done  in  our 
public  schools  which  are  vocational  to  the  extent  that  they 
teach  reading,  writing,  the  use  of  mathematics,  and  science. 

Beyond  this  point,  however,  it  should  be  possible  to  carry 
along  parallel  courses  with  interlocking  channels  so  that  the 
pupil  who  after  grammar  school  decides  upon  a  college  course 
and  who  later  finds  that  his  desire  cannot  be  fulfilled,  except 
at  the  cost  of  extreme  hard  work,  can  change  to  a  course 
which  leads  to  industrial  or  to  commercial  life.  During  all 

294 


—  295  — 

this  preparatory  time  the  fact  should  not  be  overlooked  that 
the  greatest  common  lack  of  school  children  is  the  inability 
to  work  except  under  constant  oversight.  Training  in  work, 
the  creation  of  the  ability  to  do  something  regardless  of 
whether  it  is  a  process  in  any  particular  vocation,  is  of  prime 
importance.  A  child  may  be  taught  to  work  in  a  garden 
without  taking  away  any  of  the  chance  of  his  becoming  an 
expert  stonecutter  or  lawyer.  We  are  in  the  throes  of  an  all- 
too-prevalent  tendency  to  sympathize  with  childhood  and  to 
protect  it,  and  too  little  inclined  to  train  it  for  the  stern  reali- 
ties which  it  must  soon  face.  It  is  better  for  a  child  to  learn 
to  apply  himself  and  to  find  the  satisfaction  of  a  job  well  done 
than  it  is  for  him  to  be  thrown  on  a  world  which  is  full  of 
temptations  when  he  reaches  his  maturity.  It  would  un- 
doubtedly be  a  great  advantage  to  both  boys  and  girls  if 
they  could  be  brought  in  intimate  contact  with  real  work 
under  surroundings  which  would  safeguard  their  physical  and 
moral  well-being.  This  can  be  done  in  the  school  by  provid- 
ing shops  in  which  the  work  offered  could  be  so  simplified 
that  the  training  in  work  and  application  will  receive  the  em- 
phasis rather  than  its  educational  value. 

Once  past  the  stage  during  which  education  should  be  quite 
general  and  when  the  pupil  has  come  into  contact  with  enough 
different  vocations  to  have  acquired  some  idea  of  his  prefer- 
ences and  to  have  given  his  advisers  some  notion  of  his  future 
possibilities,  the  time  for  specific  training  in  a  given  industry 
is  reached.  This  training  should  be  very  direct.  It  should 
consist  of  practice  on  the  actually  productive  work  of  the 
trade.  While  the  educational  value  of  the  work  should  not 
be  overlooked  it  is  necessary  that  the  pupils  should  not  be 
allowed  to  forget  its  commercial  value.  Work  should  be  done 
in  all  the  ways  that  are  commercially  used.  No  work  should 
be  performed  until  the  pupil  understands  why;  nor  should  a 
job  be  allowed  to  pass  until  the  instructor  is  satisfied  not  only 
that  it  was  well  done  but  well  understood.  Shop  practice 
should  dominate  the  training,  but  it  should  only  lessen  the 
relative  place  of  the  general  and  related  mathematical  and 
scientific  work  which  should  be  given  between  the  intervals 
of  practice. 


—  296  — 

These  two  portions  of  trade  training  might  well  consist  of, 
first,  pre-vocational  work  dealing  with  work  in  general  with 
no  particular  aim  beyond  familiarizing  the  pupil  with  work 
and  the  various  vocations  which  he  might  enter,  and  second, 
specific  trade  training  under  supervision  of  instructors  whose 
work  it  is  to  make  something  of  the  boy  rather  than  to  get  the 
boy  to  do  the  largest  amount  of  work.  The  time  which  should 
be  given  to  these  two  periods  should  not  be  definitely  pre- 
scribed. It  might  begin  at  twelve  years  of  age  and  run  two 
years  for  the  majority,  but  it  should  last  for  each  individual 
only  until  he  definitely  finds  himself  and  is  ready  for  specific 
training  in  a  vocation  which  he  and  his  advisers  could  agree 
upon  as  likely  to  prove  satisfactory.  For  the  pupils  who  did 
not  so  easily  find  their  place  it  should  last  much  longer  and 
cover  a  wider  range,  until  the  instructors  were  ready  to  agree 
upon  the  probable  place  in  life  to  which  the  pupil  might  rea- 
sonably aspire.  It  is  fully  as  important  that  the  apparently 
hopeless  cases  should  be  thoroughly  studied  as  that  the 
brighter  and  more  decided  pupils  should  be  prevented  from 
making  rash  decisions,  for  the  ill-effect  on  the  community 
will  be  greater  in  the  former  case  than  in  the  latter.  The 
bright  boy  will  make  a  change  into  another  vocation  more 
easily  than  the  duller  pupil. 

It  is  found  most  satisfactory  to  make  the  alternations  be- 
tween classroom  and  shop  weekly,  because  this  plan  gives  a 
very  desirable  continuity  of  work,  and  also  because  it  is  then 
easy  for  a  pupil  who  finds  it  necessary  to  earn  his  way  to 
continue  his  school  work  half  of  the  time.  That  is,  a  pupil 
in  a  school  where  alternate  weeks  are  devoted  to  classroom 
work  can,  in  case  of  necessity,  secure  a  job  in  a  shop  where 
he  can  pair  off  with  another  boy  who  will  work  the  weeks 
that  he  is  in  class,  and  thus  still  retain  his  membership  in  the 
school  and  secure  the  advantages  of  both  the  cultural  and  re- 
lated studies. 

A  typical  division  of  time  between  shop  work  and  the 
various  classroom  studies  is  shown  in  Figure  16,  which  is  the 
arrangement  used  for  machinists  at  the  Worcester  Trade 
School.  The  cultural  studies  are  grouped  between  the  lines 
A  and  B,  the  related  studies  are  above  and  the  more  strictly 


—  297  — 

manual  work  below.  The  related  studies  begin  with  a  review 
of  arithmetic,  applied  to  the  trade,  which  is  called,  Shop  Com- 
putations; a  small  amount  of  time  is  also  given  to  algebra 
and  geometry,  and  trigonometry  is  studied  under  the  name  of 
Study  of  Triangles.  All  these  subjects  are  very  elementary 
and  confined  closely  to  the  applications  which  a  pupil  may 
reasonably  expect  to  find  in  his  daily  life  or  in  his  trade. 
These  related  mathematical  subjects  are  continued  through 


FCTC/T  Term  Consists  of  14-  Weeks. 
\ 


Term 


FIGURE  16.    DIVISION  OP  WORK  AT  THE  WORCESTER  TRADE  SCHOOL. 


four  terms,  or  one  and  one-third  years.  It  is  followed  by 
Natural  Science  which  for  those  in  the  machinist's  trade  con- 
sist of  mechanics  and  strength  of  materials,  a  little  electrical 
work,  and  a  very  small  study  of  heat,  light,  and  sound.  At 
the  same  time  there  are  given  short  and  elementary  courses 
in  Cost  Accounting,  Commercial  Arithmetic,  Bookkeeping, 
and  Commercial  Law.  The  Cost  Accounting  and  Bookkeep- 
ing are  based  on  the  actual  work  of  the  shops,  close  watch 
being  kept  of  each  pupil's  activities  exactly  as  if  he  were  work- 
ing for  wages,  and  the  results  are  tabulated  as  they  would  be 
in  a  commercial  shop. 

Under  the  head  of  English,  there  are  really  three  divisions : 


—  298  — 

first,  reading  for  general  information  and  style,  second,  read- 
ing the  trade  papers  for  the  sake  of  familiarity  with  the  me- 
chanical progress  of  the  trade,  and  third,  study  of  the  English 
language  and  the  pupil's  own  use  of  it  in  compositions  con- 
sisting of  reports  of  the  work  which  he  did  in  the  shop  the 
previous  week.  This  work  in  English  goes  through  the  entire 
course  of  study;  it  is  paralleled  by  a  shorter  course  in  the 
History  of  Commerce  and  Invention,  which  has  two  purposes, 
one  to  dispel  the  idea  which  pupils  form  from  the  use  of  ordi- 
nary text  books,  that  history  is  confined  to  wars  and  bloody 
conquest,  the  other  to  bring  plainly  before  them  the  fact 
that  a  large  part  of  the  construct!  .'3  work  of  the  world  has 
been  done  by  mechanics  and  engineers  rather  than  by  the 
men  from  what  are  sometimes  considered  higher  walks  of  life. 
There  is  also  a  course  in  Commercial  Geography,  which  is 
made  broad  enough  to  cover  the  general  lines  of  commerce  of 
the  world  instead  of  being  confined  to  the  paths  in  which  the 
product  or  the  materials  of  the  specific  trade  follow.  The 
last  two  and  two-third  years  include  a  course  in  Good  Citizen- 
ship based  primarily  on  the  relations  of  the  pupil  to  the  shop 
in  which  he  may  be  employed,  his  fellow-workers,  and  then  to 
the  city,  state  and  nation  of  which  he  is  a  part. 

The  larger  part  of  the  work  of  the  school,  that  indicated 
below  the  line  B,  is  manual,  but  not  automatic.  Drawing, 
which  extends  through  the  course,  changing  during  the  last 
year  to  Jig  and  Fixture  Design,  is  done  on  a  shop  drafting- 
room  basis.  The  course  in  Shop  Work  consists  of  actual  use 
of  machine  tools  on  productive  and  salable  work,  while  the 
course  in  Shop  Instruction  stands  intermediate  between  the 
related  work  and  the  shop  work.  It  is  a  combination  of  hand 
work  and  mental  work  which  considers  the  whys  and  where- 
fores of  the  shop  work,  and  finds  the  points  of  application  of 
the  other  class  room  work  to  the  shop. 

This  schedule  is  typical  of  that  used  in  the  larger  number 
of  trade  schools.  The  number  of  hours  devoted  to  the  differ- 
ent subjects  is  varied  somewhat,  and  the  subjects  are  changed 
for  the  different  trades.  A  printer  does  not  need  the  amount 
nor  the  kind  of  drawing  that  a  machinist  or  a  pattern  maker 
demands.  A  painter  has  no  need  of  much  of  the  mathematics, 


—  299  — 

nor  does  a  bricklayer  need  the  kind  of  natural  science  that  has 
been  outlined  above.  Each  trade  needs  and  receives  special 
treatment  and  consideration.  The  length  of  the  course  is 
varied  according  to  the  idea  which  prevails  in  the  particular 
school,  namely,  whether  the  graduate  is  to  be  wholly  prepared 
for  any  branch  of  industry,  or  whether  he  is  expected  to  ac- 
quire a  considerable  portion  of  his  training  in  the  outside  shops 
after  graduation.  In  general  this  outline  is  followed  in  prin- 
ciple if  not  in  fact. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 
VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  IN  THE  INDUSTRIES 

NO  matter  how  good  the  facilities  offered  them,  many  young 
people  leave  our  schools  and  enter  the  industries. 
Their  reasons  for  so  doing  are  many.  They  may  feel  the 
pressure  of  money  matters  through  necessity  or  through  a 
desire  to  become  spenders  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 
They  may  be  weary  of  school  and  anxious  to  change,  merely 
for  the  sake  of  change.  They  may  honestly  feel  that  the 
surest  way  to  advance  is  to  begin  at  the  bottom  and  work  up, 
without  having  any  very  definite  idea  as  to  the  possibility 
of  working  up,  or  it  may  be  that  some  one  of  a  number  of 
different  schemes  for  the  training  of  workmen  in  the  shops 
may  appeal  to  them.  The  plea  of  poverty  when  followed  to 
its  conclusion  most  often  turns  out  to  be  avarice.  The  chil- 
dren, or  their  parents,  want  those  things  which  they  are  accus- 
tomed to  think  of  as  luxuries,  or  which  seem  to  them  to  stand 
for  social  position.  If  it  is  a  case  where  the  children  are 
anxious  to  get  away  from  school  life,  it  may  be  because  they 
are  over-age  and  sensitive  about  associating  with  smaller 
children,  or  it  may  simply  mean  that  they  have  not  found 
themselves,  and  so  they  must  wander  industrially  until  the 
time  comes  later  in  life  when  they  shall  awaken  to  their  pos- 
sibilities. The  author's  experience  with  young  men  leads  him 
to  group  the  larger  part  of  such  misfits  in  industries  under  this 
latter  head,  and  to  feel  that  most  often  they  reach  the  floating 
stage  through  lack  of  encouragement  rather  than  through  any 
exalted  idea  of  their  ability  to  get  along  without  training. 
The  "swelled  head"  is  much  talked  of  but  rarely  met  with 
among  workmen. 

Regardless  of  how  these  young  people  of  both  sexes  reach 

300 


—  301  — 

the  shops  and  factories  without  any  vocational  training,  the 
fact  remains  that  they  do,  and  in  very  large  numbers.  They 
often  reach  the  age  of  twenty  or  twenty-five  before  they  find 
that  they  have  aspirations  which  can  only  be  met  by  increased 
earning  power.  They  discover  the  impossibility  of  saving 
anything  on  the  wage  of  unskilled  workers,  and  that  their 
only  hope  is  in  increasing  their  wages  to  the  point  where 
there  is  a  margin  between  their  actual  necessities  and  their 
income.  If  at  this  stage,  and  before  they  give  up  hope,  they 
can  be  reached  and  given  an  opportunity  to  make  something 
of  themselves,  the  gain  to  the  community  is  almost  beyond  the 
power  of  figures  to  express. 

The  various  agencies  which  are  attempting  to  meet  this 
condition  may  be  divided  into  the  commercial,  the  philan- 
thropic, and  the  selective.  The  commercial  is  represented  by 
those  private  schools  which  teach  for  a  fee  that  covers  the 
cost  and  affords  a  profit  to  the  promoters.  The  philanthropic 
includes  both  privately  endowed  schools  and  those  which  are 
conducted  by  the  community  through  the  local  community 
alone  or  by  means  of  state  and  federal  aid.  The  selective 
include  those  private  firms  or  corporations  which  select  their 
employees  through  the  medium  of  a  training  class,  which  is 
both  an  educational  factor  and  a  selective  process  and  by 
means  of  which  the  dead  wood  is  eliminated,  and  the  capable 
and  willing  worker  whose  possibilities  may  be  brought  out  is 
thus  selected. 

Of  these  three  types,  the  philanthropic  should  do  the  most 
for  the  worker.  The  selective  will  do  the  most  for  the  in- 
dustry. The  private  school,  operated  for  profit  perhaps,  has 
a  field  in  those  lines  of  endeavor  where  a  small  amount  of 
training  will  enlarge  a  person's  earning  capacity  to  a  consider- 
able extent.  For  example,  a  man  may  find  himself  unable  to 
accept  a  promotion  which  is  open  to  him  unless  he  learns  to 
read  drawings.  In  that  case  a  very  short  but  intensive  course 
in  plan  reading  may  be  worth  a  very  considerable  sum  of 
money  to  him.  These  schools,  however,  will  very  likely 
give  way  before  the  advance  of  the  other  two,  but  they  will 
have  served  their  purpose  because  they  have  paved  the  way 
for  the  philanthropic  and  semi-philanthropic  schools  such  as 


^-302-. 

those  conducted  by  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  in  all  sections  of  the  coun- 
try. These  Y.  M.  C.  A.  schools  have  broken  away  from 
traditional  and  formal  education,  and  offer  evening  courses 
which  have  a  specific  purpose  in  mind,  and  which  do  not 
necessarily  form  a  part  of  any  long  continued  course  of  study. 
They  give,  for  example,  a  ten  weeks'  course  in  plain  reading, 
or  a  twenty  weeks'  course  in  press  feeding.  These  short  de- 
tached courses  are  now  known  as  "Unit  Courses"  and  are  now 
being  adapted  to  the  work  of  the  evening  public  schools. 

It  has  long  been  the  custom  for  the  public  schools  to  offer 
evening  courses,  for  a  small  fee  or  even  free  of  charge,  in  such 
subjects  as  drawing  for  machinists,  design  for  jewelers,  etc., 
which  were  intended  to  supplement  the  work  which  the  work- 
man might  be  doing  during  the  daytime,  and  also  to  open 
these  courses  to  others  who  might  hope  to  learn  a  trade  by 
so  attending.  However,  it  is  now  generally  recognized  that 
it  is  a  hopeless  task  for  any  one  to  learn  a  trade  of  any  com- 
plexity by  attending  evening  school  alone,  no  matter  how  good 
the  instruction  nor  how  complete  the  equipment.  Accord- 
ingly, several  states  which  have  passed  laws  devoting  public 
money  to  the  aid  of  vocational  schools  have  stipulated  that 
none  of  it  shall  be  used  to  train  men  in  trades  which  they 
do  not  have  the  opportunity  to  practice  during  the  daytime. 
This  has  caused  considerable  criticism,  based  largely  on  the 
assumption  that  every  one  should  have  the  opportunity  to 
acquire  a  trade  at  the  expense  of  the  community,  even  if  it 
must  be  done  under  conditions  that  seem  unlikely  to  bring 
any  tangible  results.  Probably  sober  second  thought  will  lead 
the  critics  to  see  that  very  often  men  need  to  be  protected 
and  prevented  from  wasting  their  time  upon  something  that 
has  very  little  chance  of  returning  them  adequate  rewards, 
and  that  the  effect  of  these  laws  is  only  to  make  it  necessary 
for  men  to  back  up  their  faith  in  their  ability  to  learn  a  new 
trade  by  actually  entering  a  shop  or  factory. 

It  should  be  noted  that  it  is  often  found  desirable  in  even- 
ing classes  to  entirely  separate  practice  work  and  theoretical 
or  book  work.  The  average  mechanic  thinks  that  his  most 
rapid  advancement  will  come  with  the  ability  to  do  work  other 
than  that  which  he  has  been  accustomed  to  do,  and  this  is 


—  303  — 

undoubtedly  true  in  many  cases.  It  is  very  often  difficult 
for  a  machinist  who  is  a  lathe  hand  to  get  any  opportunity 
to  become  a  planer  hand,  even  though  by  so  doing  he  might 
make  himself  worth  several  dollars  more  a  week.  If  he  can 
go  to  an  evening  school  where  he  can  learn  to  operate  a  planer 
he  will  do  so.  The  same  is  true  in  almost  all  the  other  trades. 
It  is  only  after  a  man  has  begun  to  lift  himself  above  the  gen- 
eral level  of  his  fellow-workman  that  he  begins  to  -see  the 
need  of  advanced  mathematics,  science,  etc.,  and  then  only 
as  they  are  very  directly  applicable  to  the  work  which  he  sees 
ahead  of  him.  While  this  is  to  be  deplored,  it  is  a  condition 
which  must  be  met  if  any  degree  of  success  is  to  come  from 
evening  school  work. 

The  greatest  difficulty  with  which  evening  work  has  to 
contend  arises  from  the  habits  of  those  who  attend.  A  man 
who  works  at  a  more  or  less  manual  trade  is  not  likely  to  be 
in  the  habit  of  going  out  evenings.  His  idea  of  comfort  is 
usually  confined  to  a  pipe  and  a  comfortable  chair  in  the 
kitchen.  If  he  goes  out  at  all  it  is  either  to  a  moving-picture 
show  or  to  some  other  place  where  he  has  nothing  to  do  but  be 
entertained.  If  he  goes  to  a  club  or  society  it  is  usually  to  sit 
and  smoke,  but  if  he  attends  an  evening  cohool  it  necessitates 
an  entire  change  of  mental  habits  that  very  likely  have  become 
deeply  rooted.  For  that  reason  he  prefers  the  shop  to  the 
classroom,  for  there  he  feels  more  at  home,  the  results  are 
more  tangible,  and  he  is  less  likely  to  make  himself  conspicu- 
ous by  his  mistakes.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  sensitiveness 
among  workmen  even  though  they  may  appear  callous  on  the 
surface  and  it  must  be  reckoned  with  in  dealing  with  them. 

This  limitation  of  the  evening  school  has  led  many  large 
employers  of  labor  to  establish  classes  which  have  the  same 
general  intent  as  the  evening  classes,  but  which  they  conduct 
in  the  daytime  and  often  in  their  own  shops.  The  pupils  are 
their  own  workmen,  usually  young  men  or  boys,  who  are  paid 
wages  which  continue  during  the  time  which  they  spend  in 
the  classroom.  These  workmen  are  usually  called  apprentices, 
though  they  are  seldom  indentured.  Such  corporation  trade 
schools  are  of  three  kinds:  (1)  those  in  which  there  is  but 
slight  change  from  the  old  apprenticeship  system,  and  where 


—  304  — 

there  is  no  organized  attempt  to  do  other  than  secure  the 
apprentice  a  fair  rotation  through  the  different  branches  of 
the  trade;  (2)  those  in  which  the  shop  work  is  left  to  be  guided 
by  the  foremen  of  the  different  departments,  subject  only  to 
a  general  scheme  of  transfer  from  one  department  to  another, 
but  where  from  four  to  twelve  hours  per  week  are  devoted  to 
classroom  work  of  the  type  which  would  be  offered  in  an 
evening  school;  (3)  those  in  which  a  distinct  apprentice  de- 
partment is  set  off  in  the  shop  under  the  care  of  men  whose 
first  duty  is  to  make  workmen  of  the  boys  by  instructing 
them  carefully  and  painstakingly  in  the  methods  of  the  trade 
as  practiced  in  the  shop,  and  where  there  is  also  the  class- 
room work  belonging  to  the  second  type. 

Of  these  three  types  the  third  is  of  course  the  most  favored, 
as  it  is  the  most  complete  and  best  fits  in  with  the  more  mod- 
ern and  scientific  method  by  which  shops  are  at  present  being 
conducted.  It  is  the  most  costly  at  first  but  probably  the 
most  profitable  in  the  end,  and  especially  so  if  the  instructors 
are  selected  for  their  ability  to  teach  modern  methods  and 
keep  their  pupils  from  acquiring  those  deplorable  habits  which 
are  more  or  less  persistent  in  the  shops,  such  as  the  lack  of 
application  and  the  doing  of  work  in  ways  which  are  time- 
honored  but  not  effective. 

One  very  distinct  advantage  which  the  corporation  school 
has  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  trade  is  that  being  a  private 
school  it  can  make  its  own  selection  of  pupils  with  only  due 
regard  to  its  own  best  interests.  It  will  not  be  likely  to  have 
the  patience  with  boys  in  their  formative  stages  that  a  public 
school  should  have.  In  fact,  the  tendency  is  not  to  accept 
boys  until  they  are  well  through  the  adolescent  period  and 
have  begun  to  take  account  of  themselves  and  to  begin  to  feel 
a  responsibility.  The  boy  from  a  public  or  private  trade  school 
should  have  a  start  of  from  two  to  three  years  over  the  young 
man  from  a  corporation  school.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  in- 
evitable that  the  cost  of  carrying  a  boy  through  a  public  trade 
school  will  be  greater  than  the  cost  of  similar  training  in  the 
corporation  school.  The  value  to  the  community,  however, 
will  be  likely  to  be  much  greater  in  the  case  of  the  public 
school,  since  the  boys  who  will  be  accepted  and  graduated 


~~  oUO  — 

by  the  corporation  school  will  be  a  picked  lot  who  probably 
would  have  done  pretty  well  in  any  case,  while  the  public 
school  pupil  will  be  the  run  of  boys,  some  bright  and  capable 
without  training  and  some  rather  dull  and  slow  with  the  best 
that  can  be  done  for  them. 

The  corporation  school  can  also  be  run  on  comparatively 
narrow  lines,  though  fortunately  many  are  not.  The  boys 
may  have  their  education  confined  almost  exclusively  to  those 
subjects  which  it  is  known  will  add  to  their  value  while  they 
are  employed  by  the  company  which  educated  them,  or  their 
education  may  be  broad  enough  to  include  subjects  which  they 
may  never  find  a  direct  use  for  unless  they  .change  their  voca- 
tion. General  education  is  not  usually  considered  to  be  a  part 
of  the  work  of  a  corporation  school.  It  is  usually  expected  that 
boys  entering  these  schools  will  have  had  a  grammar-school 
education,  and  possibly  part,  if  not  all,  of  a  high-school  train- 
ing, so  that  little  criticism  can  be  made  if  the  education 
offered  by  the  corporation  is  confined  to  subjects  which  it 
seems  probable  will  be  of  immediate  value  to  the  pupil. 

The  cost  to  the  employer  of  this  form  of  education  is  con- 
siderable. It  not  only  includes  the  cost  of  furnishing  instruc- 
tion, and  the  expense  incidental  to  the  room  and  apparatus 
which  it  requires,  but  it  includes  the  loss  of  earning  capacity 
during  the  time  the  apprentices  are  in  the  classroom,  the  loss 
of  the  overhead  charges  for  the  machinery  and  space  which 
they  normally  occupy  in  the  shop,  and  the  loss  due  to  the 
additional  time  spent  in  giving  them  instructions  in  the  shop 
itself.  All  these  can  only  be  made  up  by  increasing  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  workman,  both  during  the  course  and  after  it  is 
finished.  Inasmuch  as  the  average  skilled  workman  probably 
does  not  do  more  than  50  per  cent  of  the  work  which  he 
might  do  each  day,  if  he  knew  better  how  to  do  it,  it  is  evident 
that  there  is  an  excellent  chance  for  a  corporation  to  make  a 
school  profitable  both  to  itself  and  the  young  men  which  it 
is  training.  The  largest  profit,  however,  is  a  deferred  divi- 
dend, for  the  greater  the  effort  to  exploit  the  apprentice  and 
get  immediate  returns  the  less  valuable  he  is  likely  to  be  after 
graduation.  If,  however,  greater  effort  is  put  into  his  instruc- 
tion, and  less  into  the  rapidity  with  which  he  does  work  during 


—  306  — 

his  apprenticeship,  he  is  likely  to  establish  a  strong  base  on 
which  to  later  build  rapidity  of  production. 

There  is  a  danger  that  the  graduate  may  leave  the  shop 
where  he  has  received  his  training  and  rob  it  of  the  opportu- 
nity to  profit  by  the  work  which  has  been  put  into  him.  One 
of  the  older  of  these  schools  reports  however  that  over  90 
per  cent  of  its  graduates  remain  in  its  employ,  while  another 
deliberately  advises  many  of  its  graduates  to  go  out  for  a 
year  or  two  into  other  shops  to  broaden  their  ideas  of  shop 
methods,  trusting  that  they  will  return  later  and  be  all  the 
more  valuable.  They  report  that  they  find  this  a  profitable 
procedure.  In  the  case  of  the  first  shop  it  should  be  stated 
however  that  it  is  practically  the  only  shop  in  the  country  in 
its  particular  line,  so  that  there  is  not  the  same  opportunity 
for  a  young  man  to  acquire  additional  knowledge  having  a 
direct  bearing  on  its  work  by  going  to  other  shops. 

The  corporation  school  is  varied  by  a  connection  with  the 
public  school,  by  two  methods  which  have  been  given  a  con- 
siderable degree  of  prominence.  One  of  these  is  the  so-called 
half-time  school,  or  Fitchburg  plan ;  the  other  the  continuation 
school.  Both  of  these  have  their  strong  points,  also  their 
weak  ones.  The  Fitchburg  plan  is  an  arrangement  whereby 
a  number  of  pairs  of  boys  alternate,  week  in  and  week  out, 
between  the  public  schools  and  the  shops  in  which  they  are 
employed.  It  is  a  strong  plan  in  that  it  places  the  cost  of 
instructing  the  pupils  in  the  cultural  and  semi-cultural  studies 
in  the  hands  of  the  community,  and  yet  leaves  the  specific 
training  for  the  trade  to  industry.  The  danger  is  that  the 
division  of  the  training  may  be  one-sided,  for,  as  is  almost 
always  the  case,  the  pupils  are  sent  from  the  shops  to  the 
public  schools  with  all  degrees  of  preparation  and  from  places 
where  diversified  trades  are  practiced  by  different  methods. 
Also  the  instructor  who  is  called  on  to  teach  anything  beyond 
the  most  elementary  mathematics,  drawing,  and  science  finds 
himself  totally  unable  to  do  justice  to  any  one  except  on  an 
entirely  individual  basis.  This  limits  him  to  a  class  of  eight 
or  ten,  which  is  so  far  below  public  school  standards  as  to 
excite  vigorous  comment  and  make  the  cost  excessive.  If  the 
work  of  the  classroom  is  confined  to  those  subjects  which  are 


—  307  — 

of  common  interest  to  all  the  pupils  it  virtually  becomes  a 
typical  high-school  class,  and  the  pupils  might  as  well  be  sent 
to  a  high  school  alternate  weeks  and  have  the  same  curriculum 
as  is  given  to  those  who  are  not  working.  In  other  words, 
the  specific  trade  instruction  should  be  eliminated  from  the 
course  and  any  classroom  work  related  to  the  specific  trade 
should  be  given  in  the  shop  as  in  other  corporation  schools. 

There  is  also  another  objection  which  is  made  by  some, 
but  which  is  usually  a  theoretical  one,  and  that  is  that  every 
class  in  a  public  school  should  be  open  to  any  one  who  has 
the  requisite  preparation,  for  when  a  boy's  membership  in  a 
given  class  is  contingent  upon  his  being  employed  in  one  of 
a  given  set  of  shops  the  condition  of  business  will  have  a  posi- 
tive influence  on  the  employment  of  the  pupils.  This  is  a 
condition,  however,  that  is  not  likely  to  occur,  as  it  is  not 
probable  that  any  school  superintendent  will  actually  expel 
a  boy  from  his  classes  simply  because  he  has  been  discharged 
from  a  shop. 

The  second  method  by  which  the  industries  and  the  public 
schools  cooperate  is  by  means  of  continuation  classes  con- 
ducted by  the  public  schools.  These  classes  are  identical  in 
aim  and  treatment  with  those  conducted  by  the  corporation 
schools  except  that  they  must  be  made  sufficiently  general  in 
their  scope  so  that  pupils  from  different  industries  or  branches 
of  the  same  industries  can  be  taught  at  the  same  time.  There 
is  thus  the  same  difficulty  about  giving  specific  instruction 
in  studies  relating  to  the  different  trades  as  in  the  half-time 
school,  and  this  is  inevitable  unless  the  local  industries  are 
of  such  size  that  classes  can  be  formed  into  which  each  pupil 
will  fit  and  find  work  in  which  he  has  a  direct  interest.  The 
continuation  school  is,  therefore,  best  adapted  for  cities  where 
no  one  industry  is  large  enough  to  support  a  class  of  its  own, 
and  yet  where  the  industries  are  large  enough  so  that  individ- 
ual classes  having  a  common  purpose  may  be  held. 

The  controlling  purpose  of  all  these  schools  is  the  same 
as  in  all  other  trade  education,  namely  to  fit  boys  and  girls, 
young  men  and  young  women  who  have  already  entered  the 
industries  for  higher  places.  The  aim  is  both  selfish  and  un- 
selfish. The  first  impulse  to  form  a  corporation  school  may 


—  308  — 

come  from  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  firm  for  greater  profit, 
but  in  order  to  make  the  greatest  profit,  it  must  be  even  more 
profitable. to  the  learners  than  to  the  company  which  inaugu- 
rates it.  Its  instructions  must  of  necessity  be  directed  along 
the  more  or  less  narrow  lines  of  the  specific  trade  or  vocation 
for  which  it  is  intended  to  train  the  pupils.  The  broader  edu- 
cation must  have  been  acquired  before  the  pupil  left  school, 
or  it  must  be  obtained  by  dint  of  much  reading  outside  of 
working  hours,  or  by  means  of  correspondence  courses. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 
GENERAL  TRADE  METHODS 

NO  matter  what  the  method  by  which  vocational  training  is 
to  be  given  it  is  of  prime  necessity  that  it  be  based  on 
the  way  in  which  the  work  of  the  industry  is  done.  Unfor- 
tunately there  is  a  great  lack  of  understanding  of  this  sub- 
ject which  is  not  confined  to  the  promoters  and  teachers  of 
industrial  subjects,  but  which  also  prevails  among  workmen 
and  higher  officials  of  manufacturing  concerns.  It  would 
seem  as  though  men  who  had  practiced  a  trade  all  their  lives 
would  be  the  best  fitted  to  prepare  courses  of  training  and 
teach  those  trades,  but  in  practice  this  is  not  the  case,  for  such 
men  have  acquired  their  knowledge  in  the  slow  and  laborious 
school  of  life.  They  have  never  analyzed  what  they  do,  and  if 
confronted  with  the  question,  "Why  do  you  do  that?"  they 
are  absolutely  unable  to  give  any  reason,  except  that  that  is 
the  way  it  has  to  be  done.  They  are  ultra-conservative  be- 
cause they  have  all  their  lives  been  dependent  on  the  salary  of 
the  job  in  hand.  They  have  not  dared  to  think  independently, 
nor  have  they  had  the  opportunity  to  try  the  simplest  experi- 
ments. They  assume  that  what  has  been  good  practice  always 
will  be  good  practice.  A  shoemaker's  or  a  stone  mason's  ham- 
mer is  shaped  to-day  in  a  way  that  was  established  by  custom 
centuries  ago,  and  few  workmen  can  be  found  who  will  use 
any  other  than  the  standard  implement,  nor  can  any  one 
state  why  that  shape  is  the  best. 

Unfortunately  the  teacher,  the  college  man,  has  no  con- 
ception of  the  needs  of  the  industrial  worker.  He  may  enter 
a  manufacturing  plant  for  a  short  time  to  acquire  the  "atmos- 
phere," but  in  the  short  time  that  he  is  willing  to  give  he 
cannot  possibly  get  more  than  the  most  superficial  acquaint- 

309 


—  310  — 

ance  with  the  work.  He  will  not  stay  long  enough  to  put  him- 
self in  the  class  with  skilled  workmen  who  have  only  reached 
their  positions  through  years  of  diligent  application.  Tech- 
nical graduates  who  have  gone  into  shops  and  worked  their 
way  up  are  likely  to  acquire  the  proper  viewpoint  of  the  rela- 
tions of  industries  and  educational  work,  but  they  can  very 
seldom  be  persuaded  to  do  this  because  they  can  command 
higher  places  in  the  industrial  world.  The  work,  if  done,  must 
then  be  done  by  cooperation  between  shop-trained  men  and 
school-trained  men.  The  facts  of  the  industries  must  be 
brought  out  by  the  shop  men  and  laid  before  men  who  can 
analyze  and  answer  the  perpetual  question,  Why?  If  the  shop 
men  do  not  know  why,  then  there  must  be  experiments  which 
will  give  the  answer.  The  gain  to  the  industries  themselves 
from  the  results  of  these  experiments  would  justify  the  ex- 
pense, even  if  no  training  whatever  were  done.  A  little,  a  very 
little,  of  this  work  has  been  done  in  the  name  of  scientific  man- 
agement, but  even  there  too  little  attention  has  been  paid  to 
underlying  principles  and  too  much  to  development  of  motion 
studies  of  rule  of  thumb  methods. 

Such  a  study  of  the  industries  will  develop  at  once  two 
very  distinct  types  of  manufacturing.  One  which  we  may  call 
the  process  method,  for  lack  of  a  better  name,  and  the 
other  the  part  manufacture  and  assembling  method.  Under 
the  first  may  be  classified  most  textile  work,  most  of  the  man- 
ufacture of  iron  and  steel,  production  of  foodstuffs,  etc.,  while 
under  the  latter  are  building  operations  and  the  manufacture 
of  automobiles,  engines,  and  other  machinery.  The  work 
under  the  first  heading  is  done  largely  by  men  of  little  skill 
who  have  no  conception  of  the  process  as  a  whole,  but  who 
are  guided  and  led  by  a  few  men  of  large  ability  and  equally 
large  wage  earning  capacity.  Each  of  these  industries  is  sus- 
ceptible of  study  in  minute  detail.  The  actual  labor  is  largely 
performed  by  machinery  which  has  been  subjected  to  the  long 
and  intense  development  by  the  ablest  of  minds. 

These  industries  employ  more  than  half  the  workmen  and 
women  of  the  country,  comparatively  few  of  whom  can  hope 
for  promotion  within  the  industries.  Nevertheless,  the  records 
show  that  the  leaders  have  been  selected,  or  have  pushed  them- 


—  311  — 

selves  forward,  from  the  ranks,  and  the  same  process  is  likely 
to  continue.  Training  for  this  branch  of  industry  then  would 
seem  to  be  possible  along  two  different  lines.  One  for  the 
rank  and  file  who  need  only  intelligent  instruction  to  do  the 
specific  thing  which  they  may  have  to  do,  and  the  other  suffi- 
cient education  in  the  English  language,  if  the  person  is  a 
foreigner,  to  enable  him 'to  read  and  understand  instructions 
in  English,  and  possibly  some  elementary  instructions  under 
the  general  head  of  civics  calculated  to  give  an  intelligent  idea 
of  the  form  of  government  under  which  he  lives  and  its  rela- 
tion both  to  him  and  his  employer. 

The  other  type  of  industry,  where  individual  parts  are 
made,  often  using  the  material  partially  manufactured  in  mills 
of  the  other  type  and  then  assembling  them  to  form  a  com- 
plete machine  or  other  article,  requires  an  altogether  different 
type  of  employee.  In  general  it  is  desirable  that  they  have 
acquaintance  with  more  different  processes.  For  example,  a 
man  employed  in  an  automobile  factory  running  an  engine 
lathe  should  be  able  to  do  any  work  which  may  be  suited  to 
the  capacity  of  his  lathe.  If  he  is  a  milling  machine  operator 
he  may  find  work  brought  to  him  in  such  a  way  and  with 
such  fixtures  that  it  has  a  great  sameness,  but  if  he  leaves 
the  automobile  factory  and  goes  to  a  shop  which  makes  tools 
he  will  find  that  every  job  which  comes  to  his  machine  is 
different  from  every  other  job,  and  that  if  he  is  to  succeed 
he  must  find  a  way  to  do  each  new  job  and  do  it  expeditiously. 

In  other  words,  while  there  is  simple  and  elementary  work 
for  all  classes  of  mechanics  in  this  type  of  industry  each  class 
has  its  opportunities  for  the  highest  grade  of  skill  and 
the  best  of  planning  and  thinking  capacity  even  if  the  work- 
man is  not  promoted  to  be  a  foreman  or  to  take  any  other 
executive  position.  In  a  factory  of  this  type  it  is  important 
that  the  workman  should  be  taught  to  analyze  the  jobs  which 
come  to  him,  to  plan  out  their  method  of  holding  them  on  his 
machine,  to  select  the  proper  cutting  tools,  to  make  the  neces- 
sary measurements  and  make  the  desired  cuts  in  the  proper 
order  to  avoid  distortion  of  the  work  through  the  release  of 
internal  stresses.  To  be  sure,  in  isolated  cases,  and  as  a  mat- 
ter of  necessity  brought  about  by  the  lack  of  thinking  me- 


—  312  — 

chanics,  this  work  has  devolved  upon  a  planning  department 
which  is  composed  of  some  of  the  brighter  and  more  capable 
mechanics  who  are  allotted  the  task  of  planning  out  the  work 
for  others  to  execute,  but  in  general  there  is  almost  no  limit 
to  the  advancement  which  capable  initiative  will  bring. 

The  training  of  such  a  man  must  consist  of  a  thorough  drill 
on  all  typical  operations  in  an  actual  shop  under  conditions 
as  to  accuracy  and  finish  equal  to  those  demanded  in  the 
commercial  world.  This  must  be  supplemented  by  training 
in  thinking  about  the  job,  both  before  and  after  it  is  done; 
before  the  job,  because  he  must  learn  to  plan  his  work,  and 
after  it  is  done  to  consider  why  his  instructor's  method  was 
better  than  his  if  such  was  the  case.  It  can  by  no  means  be 
predicted  that  the  apprentice's  method  may  not  at  times 
be  better  than  the  accepted  shop  method,  as  he  comes  to  it 
with  a  mind  free  from  all  traditions  which  often  keep  an 
otherwise  capable  man  from  seeing  what  is  obviously  an  im- 
proved method  of  manufacture. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 
THE  TRAINING  OF  FOREMEN 

FOR  the  past  ten  or  fifteen  years  we  have  talked  a  great 
deal  but  done  very  little  toward  training  workmen.  Now, 
however,  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  but  that  this  form  of 
training  is  safely  launched  and  that  in  the  course  of  time  it 
will  grow  until  it  will  satisfy  the  demand.  We  have,  however, 
done  very  little  to  improve  the  foremanship  of  our  factories. 
To  be  sure,  we  advise  our  young  men  to  attend  certain  engi- 
neering or  trade  schools,  with  the  hopes  that  they  will  come 
out  with  a  higher  grade  of  technical  knowledge  of  certain  voca- 
tions than  they  could  get  within  the  shop  itself,  but  this  does 
not  of  necessity  even  act  to  sort  out  foremen,  and  the  records 
appear  to  indicate  that  if  these  men  stay  in  the  ranks  it  is 
only  for  a  short  time  while  they  are  gathering  strength  to  climb 
higher.  These  schools  do  not  add  to  the  number  of  capable 
foremen.  During  the  war  it  was  no  unusual  thing  for  work- 
men to  make  more  money  than  the  foreman  over  them.  In 
fact,  it  is  a  question  whether  the  larger  number  of  foremen  are 
much  more  valuable  than  a  workman  who  has  the  initiative 
and  persistence  to  go  ahead  with  his  work  and  who  thus  re- 
quires but  little  supervision. 

Formerly  a  foreman  was  a  man  who  directed  the  efforts  of 
other  men  who  knew  perfectly  well  what  to  do,  but  who  would 
otherwise  have  kept  all  the  good  work  for  themselves.  In 
other  words,  the  foreman  for  the  most  part  steered  the  craft. 
Then  there  came  a  growing  tendency  to  fill  up  the  shop  with 
men  of  less  and  less  knowledge  of  the  work,  and  with  less  in- 
tention to  earn  their  income.  The  foreman  then  gradually 
became  a  disciplinarian  and  later  on  an  instructor.  During 
all  this  time  foremen  were  recruited  from  among  the  workmen 

313 


—  314  — 

who  showed  signs  of  willingness  to  work,  as  well  as  some 
capability  with  the  work  itself.  There  was  also  a  tendency 
to  pick  out  the  driving  variety,  the  sort  of  man  who  would 
rule  by  brute  force,  but  not  being  allowed  to  do  so  tries  to 
scare  men  into  working  for  fear  they  may  be  discharged. 
During  the  war  these  foremen  had  to  change  their  methods, 
for  men  were  not  at  all  fearful  about  losing  their  jobs,  their 
only  fear  being  that  they  would  not  move  from  one  job  to 
another  fast  enough  to  take  every  cent  they  could  from  the 
rising  market  for  their  services. 

Just  what  the  state  of  the  relation  between  worker  and 
foremen  will  be  when  conditions  again  become  normal  no  one 
knows,  but  it  is  fairly  safe  to  assume  that  it  will  be  many 
years  before  the  fear  of  a  foreman  is  going  to  be  a  strong  factor 
in  industrial  relations.  It  is  of  course  much  better  to  appeal 
to  the  self-interest  of  the  worker,  and  the  successful  foreman 
is  likely  to  be  the  man  who  helps  his  subordinates  most  ef- 
fectively to  produce  more  and  thereby  earn  more.  If  fore- 
men can  only  be  educated  along  these  lines,  we  may  find  the 
whole  industrial  problem  much  nearer  of  solution  than  ever 
before.  To-day,  however,  foremanship  is  still  of  the  pre-war 
type  which  smacks  of  autocracy  rather  than  democracy. 

A  large  part  of  the  working  forces  of  this  country  have  but 
recently  come  from  other  lands  and  their  most  intimate  con- 
tact with  this  country  is  through  the  foreman  under  whom 
they  are  placed.  Their  Americanization  may  depend  in  a 
great  measure  on  him.  Can  we  therefore  afford  to  select  our 
foreman  without  taking  into  account  the  fact  that  to  the 
worker  he  represents  America?  These  men  have  come  from 
countries  in  which  a  man  is  a  carpenter  because  his  father  was 
a  carpenter  and  his  grandfather  was  a  carpenter.  Here,  how- 
ever, he  finds  an  entirely  new  attitude.  He  finds  the  spirit 
of  adventure,  and  in  his  efforts  to  better  himself,  he  sees  no 
harm  in  saying  that  he  has  worked  five  years  at  a  trade  when 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  five  weeks.  The  consequence  is 
that  from  this  part  of  our  population  our  system  of  public 
trade  schools  cannot  provide,  for  some  years  at  least,  any  ade- 
quate supply  of  help,  even  to  the  most  common  trades.  In 
the  meantime  the  largest  function  of  our  foremen  will  be 


—  315  — 

that  of  training  these  men  and  women.  They  will  have  to 
do  their  work  intelligently  and  keep  order  by  sane  and  rational 
methods.  The  foreman  of  to-morrow  must  have  a  keen  reali- 
zation of  his  men's  trend  of  thought.  He  must  know  that 
he  cannot  expect  that  the  same  method  will  get  the  same  work 
from  a  Finn  as  from  a  Greek.  He  must  be  a  builder  of  men, 
and  he  must  be  able  to  both  see  and  cultivate  the  good  quali- 
ties in  a  man. 

His  first  job  with  a  new  man  is  to  find  out  what  that  man 
knows,  not  what  some  one  has  taught  him  to  say,  but  what 
he  really  knows.  It  is  not  enough  to  set  him  at  work  at  some 
machine  to  see  what  he  can  do,  for  he  may  spoil  the  machine 
and  injure  himself.  Indirect  questions  help,  for  if  the  man 
claims  to  be  a  planer  hand,  and  does  not  even  know  what 
makes  he  has  run,  it  is  unlikely  that  he  has  had  a  very  long 
or  intimate  acquaintance  with  them.  In  a  way  this  is  also 
a  function  of  the  employment  department,  but  that  depart- 
ment has  to  deal  only  in  a  general  way  with  the  fitness  of  the 
candidate  for  a  job,  while  the  foreman  has  the  problem  of 
making  as  good  a  workman  out  of  him  as  his  limitations  will 
allow.  He  may  play  safe  by  putting  him  on  some  simple 
job,  and  letting  him  work  up  gradually,  but  the  nearer  he 
comes  to  correctly  sizing  up  the  man's  ability  at  the  start, 
the  less  expensive  will  be  his  probationary  period. 

A  characteristic  which  all  foremen  might  well  possess  is 
that  of  patience,  but  unfortunately  most  foremen  do  not  have 
patience  enough  with  the  men  who  have  not  been  brought  up 
as  they  have.  There  are  many  capable  mechanics  who  are 
slow  to  learn,  and  they  have  only  learned  by  being  kicked  and 
cuffed  around  from  shop  to  shop.  It  would  have  cost  the 
community  no  more  to  have  had  one  shop  carry  them  the 
entire  time,  in  fact,  it  would  probably  have  cost  less,  but  as 
it  is  each  shop  has  contributed  part  of  their  education  and 
none,  until  they  had  their  trade  well  in  hand,  received  any  re- 
turn. Any  foreman  can  undoubtedly  recall  many  instances 
of  men  who  made  a  bad  start  in  life  and  who  have  since  done 
well;  possibly  some  of  them  have  outstripped  him. 

If  a  new  man  fails  in  the  first  task  that  is  set  before  him, 
it  may  be  that  his  instructions  were  insufficient,  for  if  one 


—  316  — 

man  does  not  understand  another  there  is  always  the  chance 
that  the  one  who  gave  the  instructions  is  not  clear  in  his  own 
mind  as  to  exactly  what  he  desires  done.  Probably  every 
shop  has  at  least  one  foreman  who  really  does  not  know  how 
to  do  many  of  the  tasks  which  he  daily  directs.  He  has  always 
had  the  good  fortune  to  find  men  who  could  do  the  work. 
When  the  time  comes,  however,  that  he  cannot  find  a  man 
ready  trained  for  a  particular  job,  and  he  has  to  break  in  a 
man,  there  is  serious  danger  that  he  will  at  least  get  out  of 
patience  with  several  men  who  might  have  made  excellent 
men  for  the  job,  if  he  had  frankly  admitted  that  he  himself 
did  not  know  how  to  do  it.  Again,  if  a  man  does  not  under- 
stand instructions  he  may  not  be  deaf,  he  may  merely  be 
unacquainted  with  the  English  language  as  misused  in  our 
shops  and  he  will  certainly  not  understand  any  better  if  the  in- 
structions are  yelled.  On  the  other  hand,  he  may  understand 
if  the  foreman  is  patient  and  repeats  his  directions  slowly  and 
distinctly.  Timidity  is  often  mistaken  for  ignorance.  A 
timid  man  may  make  a  most  excellent  workman.  To  be  sure 
it  would  be  easier  in  some  ways  if  all  men  were  not  at  all 
timid,  or  else  all  were  equally  so.  To  some  men  ordinary 
courtesy  seems  like  timidity,  and  they  will  often  turn  down 
men  who  since  have  gone  through  experiences  which  would 
take  the  heart  out  of  those  same  blustering  foremen.  These 
timid  men  once  acquainted  with  the  shop  make  excellent 
workmen.  They  are  not  so  likely  to  stir  up  trouble,  for  they 
lack  initiative. 

Timidity  is  likewise  often  attributed  to  men  who  merely 
are  assuming  what  they  consider  their  place  in  life.  When 
foreigners  first  come  to  this  country  they  are  apt  to  assume 
the  same  attitude  toward  better  dressed  people  that  they  for- 
merly showed  toward  their  "superiors,"  but  after  they  have 
been  here  a  little  while  they  are  apt  to  let  the  natives  take 
the  narrow  side  of  the  walk.  It  would  be  better  for  them  if 
they  had  been  taken  in  hand  by  the  right  kind  of  a  foreman 
and  part  of  their  natural  timidity  preserved,  at  least  enough 
so  that  they  would  be  content  with  the  part  of  the  walk  which 
is  theirs.  It  is  difficult  to  estimate  how  much  of  the  Bol- 
shevism which  now  exists  in  this  country  is  due  to  lack  of  ap- 


—  317  — 

preciation  by  foremen  of  their  proper  part  in  Americanization. 

It  is  also  difficult  for  a  man  who  knows  how  to  do  a  certain 
task,  and  who  has  acquired  that  knowledge  through  long  prac- 
tice, to  recall  the  difficulties  through  which  he  himself  passed, 
and  to  realize  that  others  with  even  less  aptitude  for  the 
work  can  be  taught  to  do  it  too.  We  are  all  apt  to  overlook 
some  minor  but  very  essential  point  in  our  directions  to 
others.  If  we  visit  a  strange  city  and  inquire  the  way,  and 
are  told  to  go  down  a  certain  street,  take  the  second  turn  to 
the  left,  then  the  first  turn  to  the  right  as  far  as  the  red 
building,  and  then  turn  to  the  left,  we  are  apt  to  get  directions 
mixed  after  the  second  turn  and  have  to  inquire  again.  A 
man  who  has  never  run  a  lathe  is  in  about  the  same  state  of 
mind.  If  he  is  shown  the  shipper  rod,  the  feed  reverse,  the 
longitudinal  and  cross  feed,  the  tail  stock  and  hand  wheel,  the 
compound  rest,  where  to  oil  the  machine,  and  his  job  all  at 
the  same  time,  it  is  a  safe  bet  that  he  will  forget  something. 
In  fact  he  may  not  get  further  than  the  shipper  rod.  The 
safe  rule  is  to  show  only  one  thing  at  a  time.  In  the  case 
mentioned,  the  man  should  have  been  brought  to  a  lathe  which 
was  already  oiled,  the  work  in  place  and  tool  set  to  the  right 
diameter,  so  that  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  push  over  the  shipper 
rod,  and  pull  it  back  when  the  tool  reached  a  chalk  mark.  If 
he  is  thus  shown  one  thing,  and  allowed  to  do  it  even  once, 
he  is  very  much  more  likely  to  do  it  that  same  way  the  next 
time  than  if  he  is  given  a  confusing  mass  of  instructions. 

Then  again,  some  foremen  use  their  own  nomenclature,  and 
if  the  man  comes  from  another  section  of  the  country  and  is 
used  to  another  name  he  is  no  more  of  a  fool  than  the  fore- 
man himself.  In  fact,  the  foreman  ought  to  admit  that  his 
fondness  for  localized  nomenclature  is  foolish  and  provincial, 
and  he  should  try  to  accustom  himself  to  the  words  used  in 
all  parts  of  the  country.  In  any  event  he  certainly  has  no 
right  to  criticize  a  subordinate  who  brings  in  a  word  which  is 
new  to  him ;  it  is  his  business  to  know  the  whole  category.  It 
is  also  part  of  his  job  to  make  what  impression  he  can  on 
the  world-wide  problem  of  a  universal  nomenclature.  There 
are  certain  names  which  are  more  widely  used  than  others,  and 
if  every  one  tries  to  find  out  what  these  names  are  and  intro- 


—  318  — 

duce  them  gradually  in  the  shop  there  may  ultimately  be 
brought  about  the  adoption  of  a  single  name.  If  the  busi- 
ness is  one  which  is  peculiar  unto  itself  there  may  be  occasion 
for  the  publication  of  a  dictionary,  or  word  book,  of  the  indus- 
try. Such  books  are  now  in  use  in  some ,  industries  and  they 
are  very  helpful,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  they  are 
used  more  by  the  stenographers  in  the  office  than  by  the  shop 
force.  With  the  coming  of  women  into  industry  the  foreman 
should  remember  that  many  of  the  names  used  in  the  shop 
have  a  different  meaning  in  the  minds  of  women.  Some  very 
simple  words  like  "dog"  and  "apron"  at  first  remind  women 
of  something  quite  different  than  that  which  it  is  intended 
the  words  shall  convey.  It  is  just  as  necessary  that  these 
words  shall  be  explained  in  their  new  significance  as  it  is  that 
words  which  have  different  significances  in  different  shops 
should  be  explained. 

Another  matter  which  foremen  should  be  particular  about 
is  the  care  of  tools  and  machinery.  It  is  second  nature  for 
men  who  were  in  the  shops  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago  to  take 
good  care  of  their  tools,  for  then  it  was  considered  a  part  of 
each  man's  training,  and  many  men  owned  most  of  the  tools 
which  they  needed.  Now  it  seems  to  be  left  to  the  foremen 
to  see  that  tools  are  provided;  tools  which  only  a  few  years  ago 
were  brought  in  by  men  who  would  have  been  ashamed  to 
call  themselves  mechanics  if  they  could  not  present  a  suitable 
kit.  Nevertheless  it  is  necessary  for  production  that  the 
proper  tools  shall  be  at  hand,  and  a  shop  full  of  men  running 
to  each  other  and  borrowing  personal  possessions  is  only  worse 
than  a  shop  in  which  the  supply  furnished  by  the  firm  is 
inadequate.  It  is,  or  it  should  be,  part  of  the  foreman's  job 
to  see  that  enough  tools  are  at  hand  so  that  every  man  can 
do  the  most  effective  work.  It  may  be  that  he  can  secure 
these  tools  by  going  to  the  superintendent  and  getting  them 
placed  in  the  tool  room,  or  perhaps  he  can  best  get  them  by 
shaming  the  men  into  buying  them  for  themselves.  Then 
again,  it  may  be  that  when  the  employment  department  hires 
the  man,  the  desirability  of  possessing  a  suitable  set  of  tools 
is  impressed  upon  him.  Unfortunately  there  seems  to  be  a 
great  uncertainty  as  to  the  tools  which  a  workman  should 


-319  — 

have.  During  the  war  this  was  compromised  in  many  places 
by  not  expecting  anything,  and  stocking  the  tool  room  as 
liberally  as  possible.  It  seems  as  though  a  foreman  whose 
men  own  their  own  small  tools  would  always  find  them  more 
stable,  dependable,  and  reliable  than  the  foreman  whose  work- 
men were  always  running  to  the  tool  crib  or  borrowing  from 
each  other.  Pride  in  property  is  a  strong  influence  toward 
stability.  The  man  who  might  give  up  his  job  and  rush  into 
some  other  line  of  work  that  offered  a  slight  increase  in  pay 
is  not  so  apt  to  do  it  if  he  has  $50  invested  in  small  tools  that 
will  be  of  no  use  in  the  next  shop.  The  possession  of  the 
tools  seems  to  bind  him  to  his  trade. 

Another  matter  in  which  foremen  should  be  instructed  is 
that  of  sharpening  and  properly  arranging  tools  for  rapid  pro- 
duction. At  the  present  time  most  men  have  never  been  ap- 
prentices and  they  have  never  stayed  on  a  job  long  enough  to 
make  their  foreman  anxious  to  help  them  to  any  great  extent, 
but  if  their  present  foreman  will  only  take  the  pains  to  demon- 
strate to  them  how  much  can  be  gained  if  they  will  sharpen 
their  tools  while  something  else  is  going  on,  and  keep  them 
arranged,  then  a  connection  will  have  been  established  that 
will  make  the  labor  turnover  much  less. 

Foremen  should  also  be  made  to  realize  that  with  the 
present  rapid  flow  of  labor  through  the  shops  it  is  also  part 
of  their  duty  to  retain  as  many  as  possible  of  those  who  are 
really  fitted  to  do  the  work,  not  through  favoritism,  but  by 
making  it  as  easy  as  possible  for  them  to  progress.  Some 
may  resent  being  given  too  easy  jobs,  but  the  great  majority 
rather  appreciate  having  an  easy  time  until  they  get  used 
to  their  surroundings  and  acquainted  with  the  ways  of  the 
shops.  This  was  especially  true  in  munitions  shops  where  many 
men  were  anxious  to  get  ahead  so  that  they  might  earn  more 
money,  or  else  they  were  patriotic  and  wanted  to  boost  pro- 
duction, but  so  many  of  them  came  into  the  work  with  so 
faint  a  notion  of  what  it  was  all  about  that  they  were  very 
glad  of  the  time  that  was  given  them  to  get  used  to  their  new 
surroundings.  An  easy  job  to  a  man  who  comes  into  a  new 
industry  is  one  which  requires  the  learning  of  the  fewest 
things.  For  example,  a  man  who  has  been  accustomed  to 


—  320  — 

turning  straight  work,  and  is  therefore  familiar  with  the  mo- 
tions necessary  to  throw  the  shipper  rod  over  and  to  set  the 
tool  for  depth,  is  ready  to  learn  to  cut  vee  threads  without 
much  exertion  and  delay.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  were 
put  on  a  job  of  faceplate  chucking  he  might  find  the  change 
too  great  and  so  he  would  not  work  with  the  same  confidence. 

The  same  reasoning  applies  to  practically  every  other  tool 
and  operation  in  machine  shops  and  elsewhere.  New  press 
men  should  have  a  chance  to  get  accustomed  to  the  noise  of 
operation  and  to  the  recurring  motion  of  the  machine  before 
starting  in  responsible  charge  of  a  machine,  no  matter  how 
sure  of  themselves  they  may  be.  It  may  save  fingers,  if 
nothing  more,  and  it  will  give  the  learner  a  sense  of  the  need 
of  care  on  his  own  part.  Sometimes,  of  course,  it  is  possible 
to  hire  men  who  come  fully  prepared  to  take  hold  at  full  speed, 
but  even  then  it  is  better  to  make  them  understand  that  they 
will  have  to  come  on  as  helpers  until  their  regular  jobs  will 
be  ready  for  them.  This  is  especially  true  when  taking  on 
female  operators.  Most  of  them  are  quite  unfamiliar  with 
rapidly  moving  and  noisy  machinery.  It  is  better,  if  possible, 
to  fence  off  a  few  machines  and  have  the  beginners  do  the 
first  part  of  their  work  away  from  the  curious  glances  of  the 
others  and  especially  of  the  male  operators.  After  they  once 
get  accustomed  to  their  work  so  that  they  do  it  with  a  degree 
of  confidence,  even  if  not  automatically,  they  can  be  moved 
out  in  the  shop  or  the  fence  can  be  torn  down.  Of  course, 
there  is  a  type  of  girl  which  will  much  prefer  an  admiring 
gallery  even  when  she  is  making  mistakes,  but  they  appear 
prominent,  not  by  their  numbers,  but  by  their  persistence  in 
being  seen. 

When  a  foreman  is  giving  instructions,  if  he  stops  to  ridi- 
cule some  other  way  of  doing  the  job,  or  to  explain  how  it  was 
done  in  so-and-so's  shop  twenty-five  years  ago,  the  wrong  way 
is  likely  to  make  more  of  an  impression  than  the  right  way. 
Instruction  should  be  put  on  a  single  track  and  should  not 
run  into  discussion,  until  the  operator  is  sufficiently  well 
trained.  In  other  words,  if  there  are  several  ways  to  do  a 
job  which  are  used  under  different  conditions,  teach  one  thor- 
oughly before  mentioning  that  there  are  others.  This  should 


—  321  — 

not  be  taken  to  mean  that  methods  should  not  be  illustrated. 
It  often  helps  a  man  to  tell  him  some  story  or  anecdote  that 
will  always  remind  him  of  the  fact  that  one  is  presenting. 
Instructions  may  be  given  in  detail  and  yet  be  concise.  Com- 
pleteness is  the  most  important.  A  detail  omitted  may  alter 
the  entire  conception  of  the  worker,  and  yet  that  detail  may 
seem  entirely  obvious  to  the  foreman.  Conciseness,  however, 
is  almost  assured  if  the  instruction  is  divided  as  at  first  sug- 
gested into  units,  and  this  analysis  of  the  work  is  a  large  part 
of  the  successful  foreman's  job  but  one  to  which  many  pay 
little  attention. 

Motion  study  should  also  be  taught  to  foremen.  By  this 
is  meant  motion  study  literally,  not  any  one  man's  idea  of 
motion  study.  A  great  deal  of  time  is  lost  by  awkwardness, 
which  may  be  smoothed  out  but  which  is  not  necessarily 
always  inefficient.  There  are  always  men  who  cannot  do  any- 
thing except  in  an  awkward  way  but  they  should  not  be  de- 
barred from  working  just  on  that  account.  Mr.  Gilbreth  has 
said  that  each  worker  does  his  work  in  one  of  three  ways, 
one  when  he  is  just  working,  another  when  he  is  being  watched, 
and  the  third  when  he  is  showing  some  one  else.  From  this  it 
is  evident  that  if  we  want  to  know  how  a  man  does  a  job  we 
must  see  him  without  his  knowing  that  he  is  being  watched. 
Some  foremen  appear  to  know  everything  that  is  going  on 
without  looking.  They  probably  have  quick  perceptions  and 
do  not  have  to  stare  at  a  man  to  grasp  the  fact  that  he  is 
sitting  down  and  doing  nothing.  Great  care  should  be  taken 
in  correcting  any  one's  methods  to  be  sure  that  it  is  actually 
an  inefficient  method  that  is  being  pursued,  for  the  method 
which  one  is  tempted  to  criticize  may  be  just  the  one  that 
might  better  be  adopted. 

Another  duty  of  the  foreman  should  be  to  see  that  his 
men  are  fully  instructed  in  the  dangers  of  the  work  in  which 
they  are  engaged.  These  dangers  may  be:  (1)  occupational, 
(2)  accidental,  (3)  due  to  ignorance,  (4)  due  to  carelessness. 

Occupational  dangers  are  those  which  are  inherent  and  pe- 
culiar to  a  given  job.  They  can  be  eliminated  or,  at  least, 
minimized  by  mechanical  safeguards.  Sometimes  the  me- 
chanical guard  cuts  down  production  and  is,  therefore,  con- 


—  322  — 

demned  by  both  superintendent  and  worker,  but  whether 
guards  are  furnished  or  not,  or  whether  they  are  adequate  or 
not,  the  duty  of  the  foreman  remains  clear.  He  should  warn 
and  show  the  operator  just  what  dangers  are  present.  A  me- 
chanical guard  which  is  broken  or  accidentally  removed  is 
much  worse  than  no  guard  at  all,  as  it  gives  the  worker  a  sense 
of  security  and  makes  him  depend  on  the  guard  and  not  on 
himself.  It  is  usually  unnecessary  and  unwise  to  mix  in- 
struction as  to  dangers  with  instruction  about  work.  The 
first  few  days  of  employment  show  few  accidents  in  most 
plants.  It  is  only  when  "familiarity  breeds  contempt"  that 
danger  really  comes.  It  is  usually  best,  therefore,  to  wait  un- 
til the  new  employee  is  fairly  into  the  swing  of  the  work  be- 
fore pointing  out  its  dangers.  This  applies  to  the  foreman's 
work  and  should  not  be  construed  into  permitting  the  em- 
ployment department  to  gloss  over  or  ignore  dangers  in- 
herent in  the  work  offered  candidates. 

A  true  accident  is  something  which  cannot  be  foreseen. 
For  example,  a  man  who  has  for  months  been  lifting  heavy 
boxes  into  trucks  without  strain,  may  some  day  slip  and  strain 
his  back.  Such  an  accident  may  cause  him  much  suffering  and 
loss  of  time,  but  it  could  not  be  foreseen.  Accidents  like  this 
make  up  about  10  per  cent  of  all  accidents  in  a  well-guarded 
shop,  and  will  make  up  a  larger  and  larger  percentage  as  other 
unnecessary  accidents  are  cut  down. 

Accidents  due  to  ignorance  and  carelessness  constitute  by 
far  the  greater  part  of  all  accidents.  They  cannot  always  be 
separated,  as  many  cases  caused  by  carelessness  are  laid  by  the 
help  to  ignorance.  Ignorance  is  the  great  plea  and  alibi  of 
the  foreigner  and  only  the  most  persistent  and  unrelenting 
watch  by  the  foremen  will  reduce  these  accidents.  It  is  not 
natural  for  the  pushing,  aggressive,  energetic  worker  that  we 
like  to  have  in  our  shops  to  be  careful.  The  fact  that  men  are 
careless  only  adds  to  the  responsibilities  of  the  foreman. 
There  is  no  one  else  to  take  his  place  as  a  big  brother  to  the 
men  under  him.  They  can  be  appealed  to  on  the  score  of  the 
loss  to  their  families,  for  no  compensation  laws  offer  anything 
like  adequate  recompense  for  time  lost,  to  say  nothing  of  men- 
tal and  physical  anguish. 


CHAPTER  XL 
AMERICANIZATION 

WHILE  there  seems  to  be  an  entire  unanimity  of  opinion 
as  to  the  need  of  a  concerted  and  country-wide  Ameri- 
canization of  our  foreign-born  element,  there  is  nevertheless  a 
most  complete  divergence  of  opinion  as  to  what  constitutes 
Americanization.  Efforts  along  this  line  thus  far  seem  to  point 
in  two  directions,  first  teaching  the  foreign  born  to  speak  Eng- 
lish, and  second,  getting  them  to  take  out  naturalization 
papers.  However,  an  American  is  something  more  than  a 
man  who  can  read  and  write  and  exercise  the  power  to  vote  at 
convenience.  He  is  a  man  who  believes  in  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States,  and  who  can  and  will  defend  that  con- 
stitution by  word  and  act  whenever  it  is  called  in  question. 
He  is  a  man  who  believes  that  every  one  should  be  willing  to 
make  sacrifices  for  the  common  good,  and  make  them  in  such 
a  spirit  that  they  are  not  real  sacrifices  at  all.  Teaching  Eng- 
lish is  one  step  and  only  one,  and  taking  out  naturalization 
papers  is  but  another.  Americanization,  however,  is  not 
wholly  an  act  of  the  immigrant.  It  must  be  shared  by  those 
of  us  whose  families  have  been  here  for  generations.  We  have 
invited  these  people  to  come  to  us.  We  have  been  too  busy 
to  pick  out  our  guests,  so  we  have  sent  out  wholesale  invi- 
tations. WTe  are  sorry  that  some  have  misunderstood  us,  but 
we  must  abide  by  what  we  have  done  and  do  the  best  we  can 
to  have  the  ideals  of  all  the  people  who  live  here  such  that  a 
true  American  can  subscribe  to  them. 

Americanization  cannot  be  accomplished  by  absent  treat- 
ment. A  class  of  Italians  can  be  taught  English  by  one  of 
their  own  number  who  has  been  here  long  enough  to  become 
an  American  citizen,  but  they  will  not  be  as  thoroughly  Amer- 

323 


—  324  — 

icanized  by  the  process,  as  they  would  have  been  if  the  teacher 
was  one  whose  family  has  been  here  for  generations  and  who 
thus  unconsciously  represents  to  them  ideals  which  perhaps 
cannot  be  described,  but  which  can  be  transferred  by  inspira- 
tion rather  than  by  injection.  Our  error  lies  mostly  in  just 
this,  we  expect  our  new-come  guests  to  learn  their  way  about 
the  house  and  to  learn  and  adopt  our  ways  of  living  and  meth- 
ods of  thought  without  personal  contact  with  us.  The  nat- 
ural result  is  that  they  learn  very  soon  that  we  did  not  really 
intend  to  invite  them  and  that  we  are  sorry  they  came.  Con- 
sequently through  fear  they  have  associated  themselves  to- 
gether prepared  to  defend  themselves  against  what  proves  to 
be  imaginary  interference.  This  condition  must  of  necessity 
grow  worse  instead  of  better,  until  we  are  willing  to  hold  out 
a  helping  hand,  not  a  hand  full  of  money  but  the  hand  of  wel- 
come and  of  acquaintance.  The  word  brotherhood  has  been 
so  many  times  used  to  indicate  something  so  akin  to  pater- 
nalism that  it  is  a  dangerous  term  to  use,  but 'if  we  could  think 
of  a  big  brother  who  is  not  too  ready  to  raise  his  hand  in  their 
defense,  but  who  helps  them  to  help  themselves,  then  that 
is  the  sort  of  big  brother  that  we  should  all  be  to  our  friends 
who  are  not  yet  fully  Americanized. 

It  is  very  common  to  find  a  man  with  a  strange  name  com- 
ing forward  very  rapidly  through  our  shops  or  commercial  es- 
tablishments. We  wonder  how  he  does  it,  especially  if  he 
begins  on  the  lowest  round  of  the  ladder.  Later  it  develops 
that  he  was  a  graduate  of  some  college  or  engineering  school 
in  his  own  land,  and  that  his  early  months  here  were  passed 
in  obscurity  while  he  was  acquiring  a  working  knowledge  of 
English.  Men  of  this  type  feel  the  lack  of  cordiality  more 
than  those  in  more  humble  walks  of  life  at  home,  but  they 
do  find  themselves  accepted  sooner  or  later,  while  the  digger 
of  ditches  is  left  to  himself  to  take  up  with  all  the  unfortu- 
nate theories  which  are  offered  by  victims  of  social  unrest. 
Small  wonder  if  they  come  to  believe  that  all  Americans  are 
too  "high-brow"  to  condescend  to  meet  them  halfway.  Un- 
less we  are  ready  to  get  acquainted  with  them  we  must  ex- 
pect that  the  Bolshevik  ideas  will  carry  them  away.  It  is 
very  much  like  the  effect  of  the  saloon  which  has  competed 


—  325  — 

with  the  churches  on  very  much  the  same  basis  that  Bol- 
shevism has  competed  with  American  ideals.  When  a  man  is 
thousands  of  miles  from  home  he  is  ready  to  make  friends  with 
the  first  man  who  will  fraternize  with  him.  If  this  first  man 
has  un-American  beliefs  to  present  we  have  no  right  to  find 
fault  with  any  one  but  ourselves. 

What  then  is  the  cure?  Not  merely  more  English,  though 
that  is  necessary,  for  it  is  useless  to  offer  instruction  in  Eng- 
lish and  stop  because  no  one  comes.  It  is  necessary  to  make 
the  instruction  and  the  surroundings  such  that  the  type  of 
men  whom  we  want  will  want  to  come.  This  does  not  mean 
that  wealthy  people  should  open  their  parlors  and  pour  tea 
for  the  class.  It  means  that  a  room  with  comfortable  chairs, 
tables  instead  of  desks  and  with  the  "No  Smoking"  signs  care- 
fully removed,  should  be  provided.  It  means  that  the  teach- 
ing must  be  done  by  a  man  who  can  command  the  respect  of 
his  class,  not  by  his  erudition,  but  by  his  being  a  man's  man. 
He  does  not  need  to  lick  his  students  but  he  should  be  able  to 
do  it  and  he  should  look  the  part.  He  should  rank  high 
enough  in  the  community  so  that  his  pupils  know  that  he  is 
a  part  of  the  American  nation  and  that  they  are  not  being 
taught  merely  by  the  hired  man.  The  atmosphere  of  the  en- 
tire place  should  be  one  of  business-like  welcome  and  good 
feeling.  It  should  be  easier  and  more  comfortable  for  men 
to  go  to  school  than  to  stay  at  home. 

But  after  the  night-school  work  that  is  possible  there  is 
much  left  to  do  to  make  the  surroundings  truly  American. 
In  all  the  larger  cities  there  are  sections  where  the  only  thing 
American  is  the  fact  that  the  architecture  is  of  the  Civil  War 
era  The  people  are  all  of  one  race  and  they  carry  with  them 
the  customs  and  habits,  to  say  nothing  of  the  language  of 
their  former  homes.  They  do  not  need  to  do  anything  differ- 
ent because  their  whole  life  can  be  lived  in  that  quarter;  they 
can  buy  everything  that  they  need  and  secure  all  the  amuse- 
ment they  can  comprehend  and  afford  without  doing  more  than 
take  an  occasional  day  at  the  park  or  beach.  They  have  their 
own  paper  in  their  own  language  and  stores  where  the  signs 
and  everything  else  are  plainly  imported.  In  smaller  cities 
these  distinctions  are  not  so  evident  but  there  is  still  the  coun- 


—  326  — 

ter  effect.  It  is  the  line  of  least  resistance  for  men  and  women 
to  come  here  and  to  live  in  the  old  way  and  not  to  become  any 
part  of  the  Nation.  All  this  can  be  cured  in  time,  if  we  can 
first  of  all  do  away  with  the  foreign  language  newspaper  and 
then  with  the  foreign  stores  and  markets.  In  other  words,  if 
we  make  it  inconvenient  for  a  man  to  stick  to  the  ways  of  his 
nationality  and  make  it  easy  for  him  to  become  an  American 
he  will  do  it ;  otherwise  he  will  not. 

Our  greatest  forces  for  Americanization  so  far  seem  to  be 
baseball,  plus  the  more  recent  effect  of  the  war.  People  who 
at  home  would  take  no  interest  in  baseball  soon  grow  to  be 
regular  attendants  here,  and  the  democratizing  effect  of  the 
bleachers  is  not  to  be  belittled.  Here  men  are  just  men,  a 
home  run  brings  the  same  feelings  to  the  sympathizers  with 
each  team  and  everybody  is  so  partisan  over  the  game  that 
rank,  money,  station,  and  nationality  go  in  the  discard. 

Much  has  been  said  about  a  spiritual  awakening  among 
those  in  the  fighting.  It  is  a  spiritual  awakening  in  the  sense 
that  they  have  a  new  basis  for  valuation  for  themselves  and 
others,  but  not  very  markedly  in  the  sense  of  a  change  of  re- 
ligious spirit.  However,  unless  something  is  done  to  keep 
this  same  relation  awake,  and  to  avoid  going  back  to  the  con- 
ventional way  of  thought,  much  of  this  new  point  of  view  will 
inevitably  be  lost.  So  long  as  the  foreigner  finds  it  easier  to 
remain  a  foreigner  he  will  do  so.  It  must  be  made  the  line  of 
least  resistance  for  him  to  do  otherwise,  and  that  must  be  ac- 
complished by  men  who  have  been  for  generations  in  this 
country,  if  we  are  going  to  preserve  the  sturdy  and  self-reliant 
qualities  which  make  true  Americanism.  Those  among  us 
who  most  easily  follow  traditional  ideals  must  give  our  time 
as  we  can  make  a  way  to  spare  it  to  getting  acquainted  with 
our  foreign  brothers.  The  bootblack,  elevator  man,  fruit  ven- 
dor, all  that  we  come  in  contact  with,  will  be  better  Americans 
for  contact  with  Americans  who  will  treat  them  as  fellow  be- 
ings rather  than  as  a  useful  part  of  our  economic  world,  alone. 
This  does  not  mean  preaching  sermons.  That  is  the  woi-st 
thing  that  can  be  done,  but  it  is  possible  to  talk  a  very  mild 
brand  of  politics  to  them,  and  to  get  their  point  of  view.  If 
it  does  not  agree  with  ours  it  is  certainly  just  as  American 


—  327  — 

for  us  to  argue  it  out  with  him  as  with  some  one  who  simple 
differs  with  us  over  party  fences,  and  much  more  profitable. 

But  after  all  Americanization  is  a  personal  individual  affair 
and  nothing  that  can  be  done  wholesale  and  by  deputy.  We 
will  Americanize  our  friends  just  when  we  discover  that  they 
are  of  the  same  clay  that  we  are,  and  just  when  we  want  to  do 
it,  and  no  sooner.  All  the  classes  in  English,  all  the  speech- 
making  can  amount  to  almost  nothing  alongside  the  personal 
effort  we  can  all  give  to  make  it  the  easiest  thing  for  them  to 
become  good  Americans  rather  than  retain  their  foreign  cus- 
toms and  ways. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Absences,  131. 

Causes  of,  132,  134. 

Forms  for  reporting,  45. 
Accident, 

Compensation  laws,  179. 

Insurance,  179. 

Prevention.  267. 

Records,  176. 
Accidents, 

Causes  of,  322. 

Hospital  cases  of,  178. 

Labor  turnover  and,  267. 

Professional    insurance    agents   and 
settlement  of,  181. 

What  constitutes,  177. 
Adaptability  of  workers,  292. 
Advertising  for  labor, 

Basis  of,  99. 

Display,  98. 

Evils  of,  96. 

Scouting  and,  96. 

Age  limits,  labor  turnover  and,  273. 
Agencies, 

Educational,  301. 

Employment,  102. 
Americanization,  323. 

Forces  for,  324-326. 
Amusements,  244. 
Apartment  hotels  for  workers,  224. 
Applicants, 

Classification  of  data  referring  to, 
42. 

Types  of,  24. 
Appointments, 

Keeping  of,  197. 

Necessity  of,  196. 
Association     employment     agencies, 

106. 
Attendance,  131. 

Keeping  records  of,  132,  133. 

Relation  of  social  affairs  to,  131. 

Value  of  watching,  133. 
Autocracy  in  the  shop,  5. 

B 

Banking  affairs,  employees,  133.     • 
Bargaining,  collective,  109. 
Baseball  teams,  242. 
Basketball,  243. 
Bidding  up  rates,  79. 


Black  listing,  119. 
Bonus  system,  253. 
Boycotts,  186. 
Boy  workers,  155. 

Value  of,  159. 
Business  expansion,  80. 


Cafeteria,  shop,  207,  208. 

Capitalistic  organization,  penalties  of, 

73. 

Carnivals,  shop,  244. 
Child  labor,  what  constitutes,  154. 
Cleanliness, 

Floors  and  windows,  231. 

Labor  turnover  and,  269. 

Machinery,  232. 

Personal,  230. 

Shop,  228. 

Value  of  paint  as  an  aid  to,  230. 

Waiting  room,  23. 
Colleges,    workers'    attitude    toward, 

284. 

Commercial  schools,  301. 
Commissary  department,  204. 

Cost  of,  207,  208. 

Letting  out  privilege  of,  209. 

Menus,  210. 

Serving  portion  of  meals  in  the,  210. 
Company  property,  forms  for  receipts 

of,  44. 
Company  restaurants,  205. 

Cost  of,  206. 

Location  of,  206. 
Complaints,  125. 
Collective  bargaining,  109. 

An  experiment  in,  117. 

Individual  dealing  vs.,  111. 

Some   employer's  attitude  toward, 
110. 

Value  of  records  in,  112. 
Concentration  tests,  53. 
Cooperative  stores,  67. 
Corporation  schools,  281. 

Advantage  of,  304. 

Cost  of,  305. 
Cost, 

Corporation  schools,  305. 

Feeding  employees,  206,  207,  209. 

Housing,  226. 

Labor,  9. 


331 


332 


Cost, 

Labor  turnover,  16,  61,  62,  63. 

Training  workers,  90. 
Cripples, 

American  plan  of  handling,  162,  164. 

Assisting  industrial,  165. 

Day  laborer  as  a,  162. 

"Dead-enders,"  161. 

Employment  of,  161. 

European    plan    of    handling,    161, 
164. 

Industrial,  164. 

Mentality  of,  163. 
Cuspidors,  care  of,  230. 


Dealing  with  employees,  fundamental 
basis  of,  3. 

Democratization  of  industry,  the  em- 
ployment department's  part  in, 
65. 

Developing  the  labor  supply,  73. 

Dinner-pail,  failure  of,  204. 

Discharging  men,  11. 

Discourtesy  of  minors,  158. 

Dishonesty  of  minors,  156. 

Disputes, 
Employment  department's  part  in, 

14. 
Shop,  126. 

Duties  of  labor,  185. 


Education, 

Number  who  can  obtain,  287. 

Employment  managers,   18. 
Educational  departments,  282. 
Eight-hour  day,  199. 
Employees, 

Feeding  of,  7. 

Physical  examinations  of,  233. 

Representatives  of,  8. 

Transportation  of,  7. 
Employers'  associations,  123. 
Employment, 

Cripples  and,  161. 

Machinery  of,  20. 

Minors   and,   154. 

Office  force  and,  139. 

Safety   engineering   as   related   to, 
172. 

Records,  112. 
Employment  agencies,  102. 

Association,  106,  107. 

Characteristics  of,  105. 

Federal,  103. 

Functions  of,  103. 

Object  of,  105. 

Policy  of,  102. 

Public,  105,  108. 

State,  103. 


Employment  department, 

Ambition  of,  65. 

Backing  the,  10. 

Democratization   of   Industry   and, 
65. 

Duties  of,  5,  14. 

Need  for,  3. 

Need  of  confidence  in,  9. 

Part  in  shop  disputes,  14. 

Representative  of  the  management 
66. 

Records,  112. 

Two  ways  of  making  an,  21. 

Waiting  rooms,  22. 
Employment  forms,  41. 
Employment  management, 

Basis   of,    10. 

Courses  in,  19. 
Employment  managers, 

Cooperation    with    foremen,    34. 

Education  of,  18. 

Follow-up  in  the  shop  and,  126. 

Kinds  of,  17. 

Problems  of,  20. 

Rating  of,  16. 

Salaries  of,  17. 

Seasonal  employment  and,  93. 

Selection  of,  16. 

Scouting  and,  101. 

Training  of,  16. 

Transfers  and,  136. 
Engineering  societies,  188. 
Evening  schools,  302. 

Americanization  and,  325. 

Value  of,  302. 

F 

Feeding  Employees,  7. 

Cost  of,  206. 

Solution  of  problem  of,  205. 
Federal  employment  agencies,  103. 

Failures  of,  104. 
Files,  method  of  keeping,  40. 
File  departments,  40. 
Financial    relations   and  labor   turn- 
over, 251. 

Financial  rewards,  261. 
Firing  help,  11. 

Fitchburg  plan  of  education,  306. 
Floaters,  102. 
Follow-up  men,  130. 
Follow-up  outside  the  shop,  129. 
Follow-up  in  the  shop,  124. 

Employment  department  and,  125. 

Records  and,  125. 

Wage  rates  and,  128. 
Food,  storage  of,  230. 
Food  problem,  the,  205. 
Foremen, 

As  teachers,  320. 

Characteristics  of,  315. 

Duties  of,  313. 


—  333  — 


Foremen. 

Labor  turnover  and,  319. 

Motion  study  and,  321. 

Nomenclature  of,  317. 

Opportunity  of  the,  5,  314. 

Relation  to  workers,  314. 

Safety  work  and,  321. 

Sex  of  the,  151. 

Supervision  of  tools  and  machinery 
by,  318. 

Training  of,  313. 
Forms, 

Absence,   45. 

Duplicate  copies  of,  45. 

Employment,  41. 

For  requesting  increases  in  pay,  44. 

For  requisitioning  workman,  43. 

Reasons  for,  41. 

Size  and  arrangement  of,  43. 

Transfer,  44. 


Gardens,  247. 

Location  of,  249. 

Size  of,  249. 

Use  of  company  property  for,  259. 

Value  of,  248. 
Guy  schools,  284. 
General  managers,  value  of,  271. 
General  trade  methods,  309. 
Girls,  office,  141. 
Group  insurance,  262. 


Happiness  on  the  job,  89. 
Health  and  sanitation,  228. 
High  school,  technical,  286. 
Hiring  the  office  force,  144. 
Hiring  the  workman,  34. 

Conferences     between     interviewer 
and  physicians  when,  38. 

Meeting  the  foreman,  34. 

Physical  examinations  when,  36. 

Showing    the    worker    lay    of   the 

shop,  35. 

Home  affairs  and  labor  turnover,  274. 
Home  ownership,  the  employer's  at- 
titude toward,  31. 
Hospitals,  typical,  234,  235. 
Hours  of  labor,  193. 

Brain   worker's,    195. 

Effect  of  machinery  on,  194. 

Machine  tenders,  198. 

Manual  laborers,  195. 

Night  work  and,  199,  202. 

Noon  hour  and,  201. 

Skilled  workmen's,  197. 

Social  life  and,  194. 
Houses, 

Apartment,  224. 

Plans  of  workmen's,  215. 

Selling  vs.  renting,  225. 


Housing,  8,  214. 
Company,  220. 
"Cheap"  vs.  "low  cost,"  221. 
Cost  of,  226. 


Increasing  Rates  to  secure  labor,  value 

of,    97. 

Individual  property  rights,  66. 
Industrial  cripples,  164. 

Ways  of  assisting,  166. 
Industrial  dangers,  321. 
Industrial  education,  282. 

Analysis  of,  291. 

Definition  of,  290. 

Present  condition  and,  292. 

How  to  give,  290. 

Study  of,  289. 
Industrial  misfits,  85,  170. 
Industrial  unrest,  a  solution  of,  188. 
Industry, 

Problem  of,  76. 

Stability  in,  13. 

Types  of,  291. 

Vocational  training  in,  300. 
Instructions,  giving  of,  316. 
Insurance,  261. 

Insurance  policies,  value  of,  263. 
Interviews  with  men  after  they  are 

hired,  39. 
Interviewing,  27. 

Questions  asked  in,  28. 

Wisdom   of  asking   personal  ques- 
tions, 30. 
Interviewers, 

Failures  of,  27. 

Ideal  type  of,  32. 

Methods  of,  33. 

Value  of,  50. 

Women  as,  32. 


Labor, 

Adjustment  of,  116. 

Campaigns,  114. 

Cost  of,  9. 

Duties  of,  185. 

Hours  of,  193. 

Mobility  of,  75. 

Organization,  115,  191. 

Records,  46. 

Rights  of,  185. 
Labor  supply, 

Advertising    methods    of    securing 
a,   97. 

Developing  the,  73. 

Workers'  versatility  and,  76. 

Love  of  home  and,  76. 

Machinery  and,  78. 

Peak  load  in  the  waiting  room,  24. 

Obstacles  to  mobility  of,  77. 


—  334  — 


Labor  supply, 

Population  and,  79. 

Race  question  and,  75. 

Stabilizing  the,  77. 

United  States,  74. 

Wages  and,  80. 

Women  and,  83. 
Labor  turnover, 

Analysis  of,  55. 

Age  limits  and,  273. 

Causes  of,  267. 

Cost  of,  16,  61-63. 

Cleanliness  in  the  shop  and,  269. 

Cures  for,  274. 

Economic  loss  due  to,  4. 

Employment  department  and,  58. 

Financial  relations  and,  251. 

Foremen  and,  319. 

Figuring,  54,  59,  60,  61. 

Home  affairs  and,  274. 

Loans  and,  259. 

Method  of  paying  and,  256. 

Non-financial  reasons  for,  266. 

Office,  142. 

Physical  injuries  and,  267. 

Rating  of,  54. 

Sanitation  and,  268. 

Seasonal  employment  and,  95. 

Shop  morale  and,  269. 

Tenure  of  job  and,  269. 

Vacations  and,  241. 

Ventilation  and,  266. 

Wages  and,  252. 

Welfare  work  and,  270. 

Working  conditions,  267. 

Shop  "wireless"  and,  270. 
Labor  Unions,  188,  190. 

Bonding  of,  192. 

Propaganda  of,  114. 

Recognition  of,  190. 

Workers'  membership  in,  30. 
Lack  of  interest  of  minors,  157. 
Lockouts,  187. 

Loans  and  labor  turnover,  259. 
Lockers,  use  of,  229. 
Lunch  rooms,  209. 


M 

Machine  Tenders,  hours  of  labor  of, 

198. 
Machinery, 

Care  of,  318. 

Cleaning  of,  232. 

Guarding  of,  148. 
Machinery  of  employment,  20. 
Management,  policies  of,  10. 
Manual  labor,  78. 
Manufacturing,  types  of,  310. 
Medical  departments, 

Abuses  of,  234. 

Value  of,  235. 


Memory  tests,  52. 
Men,  characteristics  of,  51. 
Mental  misfits,  placing,  169,  171. 
Mental  tests,  47. 

Value  of,  50,  53. 
Minors, 

Education  of,  155. 

Employment  of,  154. 

Reasons  for  discharge  of,  156. 

What  constitutes,  154. 
Misfits,  social,  167. 
Milk  in  the  shop,  need  of,  210. 
Milk  stations,  210. 
Motion  study,  321. 

Production  and,  81. 
Mutual  Benefit  Associations,  262. 

N 

Night  Work,  202. 

Hours  of  labor  of,  199. 
Nomenclature,  foremen's,  317. 
Non-financial  reasons  for  labor  turn- 
over, 266. 

Noon-day  meal,  need  of,  205. 
Noon  hour,  length  of,  201. 
Notice  of  leaving,  119,  122. 


Occupational  Dangers,  321. 
Office  force, 

Conducting  an  employment  service 
for  the,   140. 

Cooperation  of,  145. 

Employment  of,  139. 

Hiring  the,  144. 

Labor  turnover  and,  142. 

Privileges  of,  142. 

Problem  of,  141. 

Promotion  in,  141. 

Qualifications  of  the,  141. 

Salaries  of,  140. 

Training  for,  144. 

Underpayment  of,  142. 

Wages  of,  143. 
Orchestra,  shop,  245. 
Organizations, 

Labor,  115. 

Shop,  272. 

Social,  107. 
Overtime,  195. 

Increasing  the  labor  supply  by,  80. 
Overzealousness  of  minors,  156. 


Passes,  39. 

Pay,   forms  for  requesting   increases 

in,  44. 

Paying  for  work,  methods  of,  252. 
Paymaster,  types  of,  258. 
Pensions,  office.  143. 
Photographs  on  passes,  39. 


—  335  — 


Physical  examinations,  38. 

Employees  and,  90,  233. 

Hiring  workman  and,  36. 
Physical    injuries    and    labor    turn- 
over, 267. 
Piece   rates, 

Basis  of,  254. 

Office  work  and,   143. 
Piece  work,  253. 
Placing  workers,  84. 
Policies   of   management,   10. 
Premiums,  253. 
Private  schools,  281,  301. 
Production, 

Hours  of  labor  and,  200. 

What  it  must  carry,  11. 
Profits,  265. 

Distribution  of,  4. 
Profit-sharing,  264. 
Promotion  in  the  industries,  310. 

The  Problem  of,  116. 
Public  schools, 

Evening  courses  and,  302. 

Vocational  training  in  the,  294. 

R 

Rating  Labor  Turnover,  54. 
Rate  of  pay,  advertising,  98. 
Receipts  for  company  property,  44. 
Recreation,  237. 

Amateur  entertainments  as,  246. 

Employees'  attitude  toward,  246. 

Gardens  as,  247. 

Orchestras  as,  245. 

Picnics  as,  244. 

Sports  as  a,  242. 

Substitute  for  vacations,  242. 
Records, 

Best  way  to  write,  120. 

Employment  office,  112. 

Forms  for,  43,  44,  45. 

Failure  of  present  methods  of  giv- 
ing, 120. 

How  to  solve  the  problem  of,  122. 

Legitimate  questions  to  ask  as,  123. 

References,  118. 

Workman's,  121,  127. 
Reference  cards,  121. 
Representatives  of  the  employees,  8. 
Requisitions  for  workman,  25. 

Endorsing  the,  35. 

Origin  of.  26. 
Rest,  need  for,  237. 
Rest  periods,  237. 
Rest  rooms,  238,  239. 
Restaurant,  the  company,  206. 
Rights  of  labor,  185. 

S 

Safety  Committees,  175. 
Safety  engineers,  173. 
Characteristics   of,   173. 


Safety  engineering, 

Amateur  committee  of,  175. 

Attitude  of  the  workman  toward, 
175. 

Cooperation  in,  174. 

Employment  and,  172. 

Foremen  and,  321. 

Safeguards  and,  173. 
Safety   engineering   departments,   40, 
172. 

Accident  insurance  and,  179. 

Accidents  rating  and,   178. 

Accidents,  records,  176. 

Insurance  settlement,  180. 

Organization  of,  174. 
Safeguards,  need   of,   173. 
Salaries,  yearly,  253. 
Salesmen,  hours  of,  196. 
Sanitation,  228. 

Labor  turnover  and,  268. 
Schools, 

Comparison  of,  283. 

Control  of,  285. 

Cooperation  of  public  and  indus- 
trial, 285,  306. 

Corporation,  281,  303. 

Evening,  302. 

Litchburg  plan  of,  306. 

Gary,  284. 

Industrial,  283. 

Shops  vs.,  155. 

Trade,  282. 

Trustees  of  industrial,  285. 

Type   of,  301. 

Vocational,  280. 
Scientific  management,  289. 
Scouting,  96. 

Basis  of,  99 

Methods   of,   100. 
Seasonal  employment,  93. 

Labor  turnover  and,  95. 

Value   of,   95. 

Secret    societies,    worker's    member- 
ship in,  30. 

Selecting  employment   managers,  16. 
Selecting  workers,  6,  51,  84,  87. 

Concentration  tests  for,  53. 

Memory  tests  for,  52. 

Trade   tests   for,  47,   48,   49.    -  . 
Shifts,  length  of,  199. 
Shop, 

Baseball  teams  in  the,  242. 

Cafeterias,  207,  208. 

Creed  of  the,  12. 

Eating  places  in,  148. 

Follow-up  in  the,  124. 

Garb  for  women  in,  149. 

Hours  of  labor  in  the,  198. 

Matrons,  152. 

Morale  and  labor  turnover,  269. 

Organjzation,  need  of,  272. 

Organizations,  271. 

Smoking  in  the,  212. 


—  336  — 


Shop, 

Swearing  m,   148. 

Toilet  facilities,  148. 

"Wireless,"  270. 

Women  in,  146. 

Skilled  workers,  hours  of  labor,  197. 
Smoking  in  the  shops,  212. 
Soft  drinks  in  the  shop,  need  of,  211. 
Social  misfits,  167. 

Mental  types  of,  168. 

Positions  for,  170. 

Question  of  employing,  167. 

Wages  of,  168. 
Standardizing  wages,  6. 
State  employment  agencies,  103. 
Strike  leaders,  113. 
Strikes,  113,  186,  190. 

Why  tolerated,  187. 


Tardiness,  64,  132. 

Teachers,  the   need   of,  in  industry, 

86. 

Theatricals,  shop,  244. 
Thrift,  the  need  of,  93. 
Tools,  care   of,  318. 
Trade  methods,  309. 
Trade  schools,  282. 

Curriculum,  284. 

Division  of  work  in  Worcester,  296. 

Schedules,  296,  298. 
Trade  tests,  47. 

Faults  of,  48. 

Requirements  of  a  good,  48. 

"Try-out,"  48. 

Types  of,  47. 

Value  of,  49,  53. 
Trade  training, 

Pre-vocational  work  in,  295. 

Specific,  295. 
Training,  cost  of,  90. 

Employment  managers,  16. 

Foremen,  313. 

Office  force,  144. 
Transfers,  135. 

Employment  department  and,  137. 

Forms,  44. 

Reasons  for,  136. 

Value  of,  137. 

Transportation  of  employees,  7. 
Try-out  tests,  48. 

Tuberculosis,  ways  of  assisting  men 
with,  165. 

U 

Unemployed  Workman,  92. 
Unions,  188,  190. 
One  fault  of,  4. 


Vacations, 
Shop,  240. 
Value  of,  239. 


Ventilating  systems,  266. 
Vocational  education, 

Industrial,  300. 

Professional  side  of,  280. 

Status  of,  279. 

Types  of,  280. 
Vocational  guidance,  86. 
Vocational  schools,  280. 
Vocational    training    in    the    public 
schools,  294. 

W 

Wage  rates,  keeping  of,  128. 
Wages, 

Checks  given  as,  256. 

Distributing,  255. 

Hourly  rate  of,  252. 

Influence  on  labor  supply,  80. 

Labor  turnover  and,  251. 

Methods  of  distributing,  257. 

Office    force,    143. 

Piece  work,  253. 

Premiums  as,  253. 

Standardizing,  6. 

Task  and  bonus,  253. 

Yearly  salary,  253. 
Waiting  rooms,  22. 

Peak  load  in,  24. 

Size  needed,  23. 
Welfare  work,  11. 

Labor  turnover  and,  270. 
Womanalls,   150. 
Women, 

Eating  places  for,  148. 

Industry  and,  82,  146. 

Machine  operators,  147. 

Toilet  facilities  for,  147. 

Welders,    147. 

Working  garb  for,  149. 
Word  tests,  52. 
Workers, 

Characteristics  of,  87. 

Cost  of  training,  90. 

Hours  of  labor  of,  200. 

Inefficiency  of,  85. 

Need  of  teaching,  311. 

Needs  of  the  industrial,  309. 

Physical  examination  of,  90. 

Placing  of,  84. 

Qualifications  of,  6,  88. 

Selection  of,  6,  84,  87,  89. 

Supervision   of,   87. 

Supply  of,  89. 

Surroundings  of,  90. 

Training  of,  85. 

Unionization  of,  115. 
Working  conditions  and  labor  turn- 
over, 267. 

Working  force,  needs  of,  4. 
Workmen, 

Attitude  toward  safety  work,  175. 

Cooperating  with  the,  66. 


—  337  — 


Workmen, 

Demands  of,  92. 

Families,  size  of,  214. 

Hiring  the,  34. 

Meeting  the  foreman,  34. 

Number  in  United  States,  74. 

Seasonal  employment  of,  93. 

Types  of,  289. 

Unemployed,  92. 
Workmen's   houses, 

Appearance  of,  218. 

Company  building  of,  220. 

Designs  of,  221. 

Doubles  houses,  222. 

Heating  of,  217. . 

Location  of,  219. 

Need  of,  220. 


Workmen's  houses, 

Philadelphia  type  of,  223. 
Plans    of    a,  215. 
Purchasing  of,  225. 
Renting  of,  225. 
Selling,  225. 
Size  of,  214. 
Size  of  rooms,  216. 
Size  of  lots,  218. 
Two-family,  219. 
Three-family,  219. 
Three-deckers,  223. 
Water  supply  of,  217. 


Y.  M.  C.  A.  schools,  302. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


DEC 


SO  1964 


,NI*£rtSVfY  OF  CAL 

DEC  9    1954 


INS't- 


FORNIA 


Form  L9-25m-7,'63(D8618s8)444 


A     000177380 


